TRANSCRIPT

Tim McKirdy: Sother.

Sother Teague: Hey buddy.

TM: Beef Bourguignon.

ST: That's where we're going? Beef Bourguignon — a classic braised beef dish. Braised in red wine. Slow cooking methods. Let's get into it.

TM: Some people call it Beef Burgundy.

ST: Some people call it Boeuf Bourguignon.

TM: We're going with a hybrid today, Beef Bourguignon. Let's kick it off as we always like to do with our personal and professional experiences with this dish. This is one that kind of means a lot to me, but I'm curious to hear your experiences first with Beef Bourguignon.

ST: I think it means a lot to me too, and I already know where you're gonna go, but I think that for me it's mostly personal. I made this dish plenty of times when I was in culinary school, but I don't think I've ever worked anywhere where we made this dish on menu. But I would not be as good a cook if I didn't have this foundational recipe in my repertoire. It's a template.

TM: And I think when we get into the ingredient section later as well, that's where some of your other professional experiences are gonna come into. And personally?

ST: Like I said that is personal, right? I don't think — I guess culinary school was my professional training but I feel like that's more personal. When I think professional, I think: have I ever been in a professional kitchen making this specific dish? And the answer is no. Have I made it at home? Yeah, we made it a couple times for getting ready for this show. But I can't recall the last time I made this specific dish. I've certainly used these techniques and that's something I'm gonna hammer a lot throughout this episode — it's chock-a-block with techniques that you can use in dishes that are similar to this, or you can break those techniques out and use them in other dishes as well.

TM: Beef Bourguignon, for me, has a very distinct connection, and that is every year growing up, we would go to visit my aunt and uncle and my cousins in Birmingham. Shout out to co-founder of The Coaster there, JP Watson. It was his mom, Helen, who's a fantastic cook. And every Boxing Day — that's December 26th for probably most people listening here.

ST: I think Americans have an idea what Boxing Day is. They know what day it is. I don't think they know what it is. I don't think I know what it is.

TM: Neither do we. In the U.K. there's certainly no pugilism involved. But Helen would always, my Aunt Helen would always prepare a Beef Bourguignon for the day. And I think as I got older, and as I started working in kitchens and started treating cooking as something that could be a job, a career, a craft — I appreciated the fact that this wasn't a dish that she woke up that morning and prepared for that day. So that meant there was a lot of foresight that had gone into this as well.

And think about it, the day before, December 25th, we're cooking — that's our traditional day for turkey. People are cooking hams, all the sides. Very similar in a way to a traditional American Thanksgiving dinner, right? When was this started? Was it two days before? Was it three days before? So I think there's a lot of love there and you can definitely taste that.

And I could realize that at the time and realize that cooking could be something more than just sustenance. So any beef Bourguignon will always take me back to that. The marriage of red wine and beef in the beef itself is something that — that distinct flavor is always gonna take me there.

And then professionally, I always worked in French restaurants. Or always served French cuisine. Beef Bourguignon would be one of those dishes that we'd pull out for the sort of private dining at the end of the year where restaurants make most of their money — you're doing functions for offices, two at lunch, three at dinner, restaurant service going on at the same time.

ST: This makes sense to me, just like your dear aunt — this is a thing you can make en masse and batch ahead, and frankly, it gets better as it marinates in its own juices, as it were. I think this makes sense in your professional life to make this at bigger events. And then there are ways that we will get into that it can be elevated. So that even if other folks in attendance have those childhood memories, they're not just thinking this is just another family dinner.

There are different cuts you can use, different preparations you can do. I think it's a perfect dish for large parties. I don't think it's a dish one makes for themselves on their own, on a weeknight. This is a thoughtful dish that requires some patience and some time. And this is certainly not a dish you make for one. Or even two, frankly. This is a dish you make knowing you're having people over or you're having an event or you're gonna potluck it and bring it to a thing. You're making a lot.

TM: We mentioned the name there: Bourguignon — Burgundy. When and where can we trace this dish back to? Are there any definitive answers?

ST: I don't think so. I think we both came to the same conclusion that we see the first sort of written version of this from Escoffier, a long time hero in the culinary world for creating the brigade kitchen and writing what's largely known as the first cooking book — cuisine cooking with routines and measurements and things like that. But this dish surely existed prior to that. This is collective subconscious kind of thing, like wine itself doesn't have a single place of origin. People were fermenting grape juice everywhere that grapes grow. So no one can claim that. So I don't think anyone can claim this because, again, it's a roadmap for a style of dish. We can substitute other products and we can come out with a similar result from different cuisines, different ethnicities, and we'll have radically different things that were all happening at once.

TM: 1903 is, I believe, the publication date of that Escoffier book. But to your point, I think before that this — as so many great dishes — is something first born out of necessity. And then improved bit by bit over time. So what do I mean by necessity? We're talking braising, right? Breaking down those tougher cuts of meat through longer and lower cooking temperatures. We develop those techniques. Maybe that begins with water, that begins with something else. And then you start saying look, we are in this region where we make fantastic wine. Surely that's gonna improve it, whether we're marinating — we'll get into that later — but cooking in the wine.

So beef stews, I don't think we can pin down to Burgundy yet. One of the other things I found upon research, and I want to get your take on this, as the former butcher in the room — the single former butcher in the room. There's only two of us and I certainly wasn't one. So Burgundy, obviously famous for its wine, also famous for — or famously tied to — a specific type of cattle: Charolais. C-H-A-R-O-L-A-I-S. I Googled them. Fantastic looking beasts. And famous for the region. So then it makes sense if you have two things that are tied to a region, as so often is the case in France, it grows together, it goes together.

ST: That's not just in France, that's all over the world.

TM: No, yeah, I know. But they're particularly sticklers with their AOCs. Maybe retroactively it becomes associated, or this region makes it famous or makes it bigger because you have these two fantastic products. And then of course, in more modern times, the dish gains international fame through Julia Child and becomes what is — at least on this side of the Atlantic through Julia — an icon of French comfort cooking. Is that fair enough to say?

ST: A hundred percent. And I don't know which episode it was of her public television show, but it was early on. This was certainly an introduction to French cuisine. She was an introduction to French cuisine for the American public in general. But this particular dish was an early one of the show itself. So this dish introduced people to French style cooking.

TM: What are we talking there? Fifties, sixties, seventies?

ST: I think it was late fifties, early sixties. Nowhere near until the seventies. Don't forget this was still black and white television.

TM: Oh, okay. 'Cause I was wondering whether there's any overlap there with that sort of modern phenomenon, that 60 Minutes segment that airs "the French paradox" where people are like, this is a nation that eats fatty foods and they drink a ton of wine. Like, why are these people living longer? Why do they seem healthier?

ST: Universal healthcare? Okay. Moving on.

TM: Less processed foods, I will say. But also, yeah, that there are some benefits to drinking red wine. We're still figuring that one out. But I wondered whether that begins — maybe this show plants the seeds of looking across the pond there to France and just being like, these folks have it figured out. There's regional identity.

ST: I think that in that time when Julia Child's show first came out, maybe we didn't have regional identities yet in the United States, or had yet to own them. Like they existed, but we didn't know about them. We simply lived in the region we lived in, and that's what we did. And then with things like television shows coming into play, and books coming out about cuisine and food, and more leisure time in life — then we start to discover that, oh my, my neighbors to the north, they don't eat biscuits. They do it slightly different here.

TM: What is so interesting to me, and this is a nice little setup for the next question — it is so often those dishes that become regional pride, they start out as cheaper dishes. Or dishes that are, like I said earlier, born out of necessity. They give an identity to a region, but then they become embraced. And then they become celebrated.

ST: I think a lot of foodstuffs that we enjoy today have their origins in the poorer kitchen. The more economically challenged kitchens are taking things and putting more effort into them. It's very easy to take a cut of New York strip and put it on the grill or even in a pan and roast or broil it and have a steak. That's pretty easy. But when you're handed something, a lesser cut that's more filled with silver skin or tons of connective tissue that needs to be broken down over a longer, slower period, that's when you have to put in time, intentionality, thought. And then the results — we prove over and over — the results are pretty great. And then those who were at the upper end of that economic balance start to crave those things that are being made by the lower end. And then of course those things become expensive. It's a never ending cycle.

TM: It's like there's a three Michelin star restaurant just outside Marseille that I think does a — I don't know, something crazy. I'm thinking 30 courses, but it might even be something as simple as 12 courses — broken down bouillabaisse. And talk about taking something simple and making use of the bounty of everything that's available there in a vibrant port town. And then just taking it to a place where it probably didn't need to go.

That does lead me to the question, though, that I set up originally. Is this a prince's or a pauper's dish?

ST: I think it is both. It's a dish for a prince or a pauper. Originally, I think this was produced out of necessity, as you said. And I think it was eaten in common homes among family and friends over a big pot next to the fire. I think then when Escoffier printed it in his book, that's what elevated it to the princely level. This is now something I'm making for kings and nobility. And that's where then maybe the techniques get a little bit more refined. And that's cyclical in nature too. This dish was probably being made in some fashion or another to delicious results, but then someone codified it — that being Escoffier. So then the codification and being able to have a reference to look to and then repeat it over and over again. That's what craft is.

TM: I think that's a lovely transition into the next and final question or discussion point for us in this section of the show. We mentioned it's a beef stew made with red wine. Those are two of the defining characteristics. I don't think those two alone, though, a Bourguignon doth make. There's plenty more. So what are the non-negotiables for you, for this dish? If it doesn't contain them, are you walking away and saying that's a good dish, that's a good beef stew you have on your hands there, but that's not a Bourguignon?

ST: I think obviously we've got beef and red wine, that's clear. We have to have pearl onions. We have to have mushrooms. And I'm on the fence, but I know how you feel — there has to be some sort of salted pork product: lardons, pancetta, et cetera.

TM: Oh, no I'm totally with you on that one. So I have down here in my notes: has to be slow cooked as well. Red wine, non-negotiable. Garnishing vegetables, as you mentioned — mushrooms, pearl onions, pancetta. I'm in, I'm sold. I'm with you on that one. For me, and I know this is non-traditional, carrots — baby carrots I like. But there needs to be a carrot in there, and that might just be the childhood memory coming out.

ST: I like carrots in Yankee pot roast and things like that. It's something that brings a sweetness to the dish. A pop of color. I'm not opposed to that being in there, but I don't think it's on my list of non-negotiables. I could go without them. I could certainly be happy to see them in there too. I could be happy to see some little turned potatoes in there too, but I don't think they're gonna make or break the dish.

TM: On that front as well, I also have: generally, I will serve this dish with mash and parsley, and we can get into those later. But first we'll take a quick break…

Alright, then Sother, here we are — ingredients time. We teed it up there before, but let's go into the ingredients in greater detail. Let's do a deep dive. And let's do it in order of importance. The opposite of what you might do when you're building a cocktail.

ST: You're right. We build cocktails upside down, right? So we don't waste anything by accident, but that's not gonna be the case in a big dish like this. Obviously I think the beef's gonna be the most important thing. So let's start there. What cut of beef are you choosing? I have three choices and three reasons for those choices. But you can lead.

TM: I will go with what I'm cooking this with and then I will lean into what I have cooked it with and what I really like. But I'm probably not going out of my way on a day-to-day basis to do it. So this, for me, it's a classic chuck dish. Great cut of meat for this. I'm not the former butcher though, so tell us more about that. I just know that's vaguely shoulder region and a good one for cubing into a nice size.

ST: It's got a great fat to lean ratio. This is the beef that's typically what you're getting when you're getting ground beef. So it's a bunch of different muscles that are twisted together, so it's not something you're gonna make a steak out of. So this is a perfect example of how to use chuck. And I think it's a great choice — it's a good economical choice. In fact, we'll just go tit for tat then — it's my first choice for the economy of scale of this dish. You're gonna need a lot. You're gonna need something that's got flavor and fat and you're gonna need something relatively inexpensive. Chuck's your way to go.

TM: On that front, and this might vary slightly if you're getting this from a dedicated butcher or whether it's a butcher in a supermarket or worst case scenario if you're just buying packaged, right?

ST: I have just a real quick interjection here on that. As a former butcher, and if you're listening to this show, I assume you fancy yourself something of a cook, and hopefully you're a good one. Or you're aspiring to be a good one. You should have a relationship with your butcher. You should try to go to butcher shops that are owned by the butcher. And that's a separate trip from your normal grocery. I know that's a hassle — nothing cool is easy, right? If you're gonna do cool things, it's gonna be hard. So you should have a butcher.

Second to that, go to grocery stores where you can see a butcher. Your last opportunity — and granted, this all comes down to economy, what you can afford, where you live, what's close to you — your third choice is the story you just described where you don't even see people cutting meat. You just see packaged meat already in the display case that you grab for yourself.

Best thing is to go to a place where they're serving you. The meat's all laid out, and it's beautiful. You point to the one you want, they cut it to the thickness you like. And these guys are gonna talk to you as well. You're gonna create a relationship. If you're listening to this show, I assume you're probably someone who enjoys a good cocktail, and I bet you know your bartender's name. What's your butcher's name? Get into it.

TM: This might depend on if you're going to the butcher or not, or how busy the butcher is. But they're gonna serve you a nice trimmed version of that. They're not gonna take all the fat off though, or everything — they're gonna leave something on it. They're gonna allow you to make some decisions. Hopefully you're not turning around to them and saying, "I'm making Bourguignon tonight, so can you break it down for me?" 'Cause that's part of the fun.

ST: Again, if you're the type who's listening to this show, you probably do enjoy the process. So maybe you ask him for just a big hunk of chuck roast and you go home and take care of it yourself. But bear in mind that, again, economy of time — maybe you don't have the time, so you ask him to do it. But understand that every time a butcher touches his knife, the price goes up. Every time he has to cut anything, trim off any fat, cube something for you, the price per pound goes up and up. And strangely, in your mind, the amount that you get is less.

TM: And you're losing things that you might be able to use for something else as well.

ST: So yeah, get that chunk of chuck yourself, go home, take a look at it, get your hands on it. And you'll see some striations where the muscles are intertwined. In those striations you'll find silver skin or bits of fat largely. You can literally pull the meat apart with your hands to at least get it started and then chase that line with your knife. So you're not gonna make any egregious mistakes. And in this particular scenario, a great opportunity to practice a little bit of butchery because in the end, it's gonna be cubed meat that gets braised for a long time. Lots of room for error.

TM: Yeah. There's no bone to leave things on. So the stakes are low, no pun intended.

ST: 'Cause we say in the butcher shop, red is green. We're not throwing away anything red. That's money.

TM: Oh, damn. Any other good butcher phrases? We can pepper throughout, who knows. But I look forward to them when they do come up. So roughly, size wise, what are you thinking there? Those cubes for this dish?

ST: Radio being the medium here, I'll say we want to be somewhere like two inches by one inch. So picture maybe like a pack of Wrigley's gum, but two of 'em stacked on top of each other long ways. So these little sort of rectangular chunks of beef, that's what I want. And I think I want that size because this ain't soup. I want the end result of this meal — two things we need to know: it's to be eaten with a fork and it's served on a plate. We're not making soup. Bourguignon is a very saucy, braised beef dish. It is not soup or stew.

TM: Next cut of beef from your end. So chuck was your number one as well.

ST: Chuck was number one. So right up in the same area you've got what's called the blade steak. So that's the shoulder blade — chuck comes from up near the shoulder. Shoulder blade steak, also often called chicken steak. I don't know why — I'll never know the names of beef cuts. But often called a chicken steak. This piece of meat is gonna be a little bit more tender and a little bit more marbleized, so a little bit more luscious. It's just stepping up the ladder one more rung.

Similarly, it has a massive piece of silver skin that runs right down the kind of center of it. So you can again, start pulling the two muscles apart with your hand, and then chase the rest of it with your knife and then remove that silver skin. It's got a little bit of an exterior fat cap, but not much. But the interior — the intermuscular fat, the marbling — is very present. So it's a great piece of meat. And again, this is a piece of meat that you can, as I just said, it's called chicken steak. This is a piece of meat you can cook as a steak, but it'll bring a lot to the party in this preparation.

TM: Is there any type of cooking that will render that silver skin edible?

ST: Nothing. Silver skin is here forever. It's not going any place. There's no amount of time that you could braise, boil, char — it's not going anywhere. It's just the enemy. You can't chew it enough. It's not going any place.

But that's a great question, 'cause I think people don't realize that. And I think when they get a hold of something like the cut that I just mentioned — if you get the whole thing, picture like it's oblong, about the size of a small loaf of bread. And then that silver skin is running right through the middle, bifurcating it, as if though instead of cutting slices of this loaf, you're cutting it in half long ways. So then when you, if you were to just cut it straight down, then each piece would have this beautiful meat on both sides of this strip of silver skin in the middle. And if you tried to make a steak outta that, you'd be like, the steak is good. And then it's good on the other side. But this middle piece is such a disappointment. And that's just because you didn't know that. And I think it's okay to not know stuff.

TM: With the caveat that I did see — this is an aside, but just a quick one for you. What is Instagram Reels or TikTok's favorite dish to prepare in the kitchen? Beef Wellington. Though I did see some numpty, some idiot making Wellington with blade. And just had that — because the rest of the meat looks really nice. It looks really lean. It looks beautiful. It's not a filet.

ST: But what a great example you just used though. I think there's some correlation there. It's obvious that what looks good and what is good are not always the same thing. If you don't know, then you don't know. And you're gonna find out, and it's not gonna be pleasant. But also it still wouldn't be a tragedy. You'd eat this. If you had that chicken steak that I just described, you'd still eat it. You'd just leave on your plate that bit of silver skin that your knife wouldn't be able to cut. It wouldn't ever probably make it even into your mouth, but the bits that you ate — just like you don't eat the core of the apple. Unless you really want to. My granddad used to.

TM: That's the difference between those prince's and those pauper's cuts and dishes and what we're talking about.

ST: And that thoughtful intention on making the dish.

TM: Speaking of silver skin, big one here. The cut of beef that we would always use in the restaurants in London that I worked — for this, but also basically any braised beef dish — beef cheeks.

ST: You mentioned that to me before. First of all I'm remiss that I didn't think of beef cheeks for this because it's truly, probably — and again, it's gonna be the expensive choice — but it's probably the best even against the one I'm gonna name next. But also, you did mention to me that you worked in these restaurants that always serve beef cheeks in their braised dishes. And I'm like, where were they sourcing them? There aren't that many. There's only one face on each cow. There isn't a lot of beef cheek out there.

TM: You would not believe the size of the bags that these cheeks would come in — basically prepared. You got the cheek and you've just got that big flap of silver skin on top. But that's one of the easiest things. That's why as an apprentice and very early on in the kitchen, it's one of the early butchery jobs I got given to do because you turn it upside down, you have that laying down flat and you just run that knife at an angle. It's very easy to leave no red on there.

ST: It's almost like pulling the skin off a salmon.

TM: Exactly right. It just looks good. And then also portion wise, it was very easy for us 'cause we would individually portion these for service or for those functions and we would serve it — I think it was 150 or 175 grams of meat. Someone can tell me what that is in ounces 'cause certain things I just haven't converted yet.

ST: You shouldn't. We should be going your way.

TM: I'm fully Fahrenheit these days. But yeah, the beef cheek — just something that will soak up flavor really well.

ST: Luscious, fatty, but not in the gross way. Really tender when braised. Just gorgeous meat. Even when you get it, as you said, in those bags — it's not even really red. Like we think of meat, it's almost purple.

TM: It's purpley, and it has other connective tissues, but the stuff that will break down. And then one of the things I love too — you've braised something, you've cooled it down in its liquor. You've taken it out, now you're portioning it up and you try and make it look good or attractive, right? You really only wanted two pieces of that, or three max, but you cut through that and there's just like these gelatinous lines through it. What a fantastic cut of meat.

ST: My third choice was for the non-economical one: short rib, which I think has become like the go-to braised piece of beef in America for restaurant service. Braised short ribs over polenta, braised short ribs in the ragù, braised short rib in the birria taco — it's overtaken chuck and other cuts, because I think those cuts in America get ground up because we eat a tremendous amount of hamburgers here. So everything's getting used. It's just how are we using it right now?

TM: Not you buddy. One a year.

ST: Four. Four a year on the hamburgers. I haven't had one yet this year, and the year's almost over.

TM: Getting ready for that. The short rib, one of the things that I really like about it as well, just from a cultural point of view — I think it is something that, I'm not gonna say traditionally because I wouldn't claim to be an expert on things, but where you see Asian American restaurants, and I hate to use that big sort of umbrella as well, but where you see those restaurants where you have second, third generation immigrants cooking the cuisine of their parents and grandparents — I do feel like the beef short rib has made its way into so many of those cuisines too and adapts so well.

ST: Like I just said, birria tacos. You can find short rib in anything. You go to the Jamaican patty place and you can get short rib patties. Or there's a place out in Brooklyn that does braised short rib pizza. So it's great. And I think I would encourage the listener: don't be intimidated by this thing, 'cause you can talk to your butcher, whose name you should know, and you can get a plate of short ribs pretty inexpensively.

And let's not forget that the bones in a short rib are about as wide as your cell phone and maybe two and a quarter times as long. And if you get a plate, you're probably only gonna have four bones in there. Very easy to find and remove with a knife, right? This isn't meticulous surgery of pulling out the pin bones in a perch. This is four big bones that you gotta remove, and then you just have this gigantic slab of meat with not a lot of need for trim.

It's got a lot of cartilaginous material — that's where the bones were that you'd be cutting them out of. I would highly recommend leaving that on for the braising process, 'cause you want that collagen to get into your liquid so that you will have a richer product in the end. And then it'll literally, easily with your hands just peel off after the fact. And then you can cube up the meat or cut it into service size pieces.

But yeah, pulling off the cartilage — I wouldn't bother doing that. I would pull out the bones so that I could then cube the meat into the size that I can get it into my Dutch oven or what have you. And then I would come back at the end of the process and pull that cartilage out there, 'cause it'll stay intact. It won't ever fall apart. And we shouldn't cook this meat until it's falling apart anyway. We're not making pulled beef here. We're making a braised dish.

TM: And those bones, you're either gonna keep 'em aside, put 'em in the freezer if you have some space till you've built up enough, or are you getting rid of them?

ST: These bones don't have a lot to offer. They really don't. Again, like I said, they're about as wide as your cell phone and probably about as thin as well. There's not a lot of marrow to be had in there. These aren't the knuckle bones that you need to make a good stock. They got nothing.

TM: Next ingredient here. I'm going pearl onions.

ST: Pearl onions. They must be in there. I think pearl onions make a dish special. Why wouldn't I just chop up a regular onion? It's because I want this thing to be in there intact, holds its shape, and looks beautiful. And it also means that I took time — I can chop up an onion in 30 seconds. I'm gonna peel a hundred pearl onions. That's gonna take me a minute. Gotta blanch 'em. Real fast, gotta go through — before I blanch 'em — and make that little cross in the bottom with my knife so that they'll hold together better. So that's where the root would be — on the root end. You just wanna take your paring knife and make a little quick incision at 90 degree angles to each other. So you got a little plus sign or X.

TM: So then you're dropping those into water that has boiled. You're gonna leave them in for a minute or so?

ST: Yeah. Just get the water to boil and drop 'em in there and leave 'em for a minute or two. You don't have to pay too much attention to 'em. Scoop 'em outta there. You can run 'em under cool water, put 'em in an ice bath real fast, and then the skins will just slip right off. And then you've got your peeled, ready to go pearl onions. There's a process that we're gonna get to next, though, on how to cook them.

TM: Mushrooms next for me.

ST: Mushrooms. Button mushrooms are the way to go with this dish, I think. Because again, pauper to prince — but we can make them nice. I would say you want nice sized ones. If you wanna get really fancy, you could peel them.

TM: Yeah. I was gonna ask — do you peel your button mushrooms?

ST: It depends on what I'm doing. For this dish, I think I would, yeah. There are many other things going on that I can use that passive time to flute around with the mushrooms. And to peel 'em, it's pretty easy. You use your paring knife again. You grab the sort of flap that's just underneath the umbrella of the thing up against your thumb and you just peel towards the top. They'll come off surprisingly easy. I don't think people realize you can peel a mushroom. And then they're just pearl white and they look really nice.

TM: Then if you wanna go the extra next step, we turn them.

ST: Yeah. Turning mushrooms. What a tedious, goofy thing, but they're gorgeous.

TM: Describe it to the listeners here.

ST: Sure. So you're gonna take that mushroom, you're gonna peel it. Then you take the mushroom in your least dominant hand, put your paring knife in your more dominant hand. Press the center of the blade at the center of the top of the mushroom. And while turning the mushroom counterclockwise in your hand towards your body, you are then turning the blade clockwise away from your body. And this will create a groove in the mushroom that starts at the top and curves down to the bottom. Then you move the mushroom just a centimeter. And then you do it again, and you do it again and again. And you have this sort of spiral design on the mushroom and these little shavings that fall off that look like fingernails.

TM: The end effect is that it looks like a pithivier.

ST: But who does anyone know what that is?

TM: Maybe not. That's a beautiful pie that has this same puff pastry design.

ST: But yeah, if you look up pithivier, you'll see — or look up turned mushrooms, you'll see what I'm talking about.

I would not do this for all of them. I would consider certainly doing two of them per guest and reserving them to the side. And at plating time, everybody gets a couple right on top, so that it looks like — again, there's that intentionality — that I took care of this dish. I thought about it when I was making it, and that's a corner I had to turn.

When I was younger, I remember clearly, before I went to culinary school, going to a fancy dinner in Atlanta at a place — I can't remember, I think it was called Monks. And it was in an old church, and it was like this super over the top Frenchy fancy meal. And whatever it is I ordered came with turned vegetables on the plate. And I remember remarking to my date, what's the point of this? But then later in life I'm like, oh, the point is to show that they cared. The point is to show that there was intentionality and that they cared to take it from that pauper's to that prince's preparation.

You gotta do the extra things. You gotta peel the mushrooms, you gotta turn them.

TM: I'm surprised this technique hasn't made it to Instagram yet. Maybe we can make this happen. We can be the turning guys.

ST: I have to do some practice to get back into it.

TM: They had it at my culinary college as well in London. Founded by Escoffier, by the way. Oldest culinary school in the U.K. They had that as part of the exam in year one, and I believe that the only reason they did that was so that no one could ever get full marks. Some people were trying to sneak them in, prep them at home, sneak it in the pocket.

ST: I had a chef who — we would all be standing around turning potatoes, which is supposed to result in a barrel shaped product with exactly seven sides. Seven. Why not eight? Why not six? Even numbers are so much easier.

TM: It should never be even numbers.

ST: No, it should always be odd, but so much easier to hit. But he would come by while four of us would be standing around a table, just peeling 'em and throwing them into a five gallon container with water so that they don't turn brown. And he would grab one from any one of us and grab a paring knife from any one of us and bang one out in one second, and then throw it in the bucket and then say, "When this bucket is full, I'll be able to find mine." And he would — he'd come back and he'd be like, "This one's mine." And you're like, yeah, yours looks great. Yours looks perfect. And ours look wonky.

TM: Moving on — pancetta, smoked or unsmoked?

ST: I think I came to the conclusion that I would go smoked. It's not gonna bring a ton of smoke to the party, but I had some conversations where I thought about maybe even smoking the meat would be a fun thing to do with a beef Bourguignon. I hadn't thought of it before. Hadn't really given it too much consideration, but I think I would go with smoked and that way we could get just a little touch of fumé, a little extra something in there.

TM: For me, it's distracting. I don't know what it is about it. Maybe it is because if we take this back to the roots as well — growing up, bacon for me is back bacon. It's not streaky bacon. And it's unsmoked. Rashers. You might have a little bit, but nothing like when I'm walking down the street in the morning with my dog and they walk past the bodega and they're making bacon, egg, and cheese sandwiches. This smells like a smokehouse.

So the smoked pancetta for me, I'm just like, is it maybe one dimension too much for this dish? Maybe it's not.

ST: But I think that we're not gonna have that tremendous of volume in here. And also I think that aroma that you get when you're walking past the bodega here in New York — we smoke the Jesus out of our pork products. Smoked pancetta isn't as smoky. There's a wisp, there's a layer there, but it's not overpowering. That's just my opinion. But I came to that weirdly in conversation with you.

TM: I am gonna lobby for carrots today. I'm gonna say that we're including them in our Bourguignon.

ST: I think that's fine. I think looking around at recipes in books and older recipes, they're not there. But I don't think it's a problem to break a rule if you know the rules. And they do bring something to the party. We already talked about — they bring a pop of color, which doesn't really matter that much to me, but they bring a sweetness, that sort of earthy sweetness, and some texture. So if you want 'em, go get 'em.

TM: I like baby carrots. But again, another thing you can be doing is practicing your turning skills.

ST: You mean actual small carrots?

TM: Yeah. Individual small carrots — that's what I mean by baby carrots, with the green still on the top and everything.

ST: Excellent. That makes me feel better.

TM: Otherwise you can buy big beefy carrots, peel them, and you can start turning those in practice. Nothing's getting wasted. We're making sure we're using that for something else.

ST: Slaw, carrot cake.

TM: Speaking of color, we return to parsley. I'm over it. I always include it for this dish. Generally flat leaf rather than curly.

ST: I'm a stan for curly parsley.

TM: It's a garbage herb, though. It brings nothing to the plate flavor wise.

ST: Cleansing.

TM: It's generally an aggravation to eat. The flat stuff gets stuck at the top of your mouth. People always used to like the curly stuff in the kitchens 'cause it's really easy to chop it up and make it look like you've done a fine job. The flat stuff will require a bit more preparation. And yet I will always use it, I'll always buy it, and I will always serve it when I'm making this dish at home or for having people over. It'll always be there to add that pop of color. And I think that is all of which is to say: this dish does need some stuff to make it look presentable.

ST: Yeah. It's a bit thick and brown. And gray.

TM: You got your gray pearl onions. You got your gray mushrooms — they were beautifully white before you started cooking them. You got your meat, which could be whatever color. Brown pancetta.

ST: I'm colorblind, so I'm less concerned with that stuff. But we do need to talk about the beef itself once we've chosen the meat. What's the preparation, Tim? I'm camp soak. You're gonna soak the beef for how long?

TM: 24 hours minimum in red wine. Overnight is fine. But I generally would like to go for 24 hours in the red wine that I am then going to cook this with. I think that the process — whether this is just pseudoscience or something you make yourself believe — I think that penetrates the flavor of wine into the meat in a way that simply cooking in red wine does not do.

ST: I am gonna say I'm in with the soak, but here's where I'm gonna turn it over a little. I'm gonna brown my meat first before soaking. Because I want to get that Maillard reaction that I'm not gonna get as much of if I soak the meat first, because I'm just never gonna get it dry enough to get a good sear.

TM: I think you and I have in the past discussed methods where you could do that, but it just does not make sense to start soaking, then air drying and doing stuff like this. It's really not worth it. This dish already takes so much time. Right?

ST: Let's assume we did your method and we go 24 hours in the red wine, then I would wanna pull it outta the red wine and put it on a rack and put it in my fridge for at least 24 hours to dry out. So now we're two days in and we haven't even started cooking. So I think I would get my beef, I would butcher it down to the size that we talked about earlier, I would brown it all off, then I would throw it into some red wine and give it 24 hours.

TM: Seasoning. You're, I'm assuming, in this case, seasoning your beef before you're caramelizing and then that's going into the red wine, correct? Are we also seasoning the wine that it's gonna soak in?

ST: With my method, it's gonna get seasoned by the beef going in there that's been seasoned. And then yeah, sure. Maybe I'd give it a taste before I left it overnight. Maybe just light seasoning. 'Cause this cooking is not gonna create a brine. But a little bit of salt in there is gonna help the osmosis where the wine will penetrate the meat. Some stuff from inside the meat will come out into the wine, vice versa till it finds the equilibrium. So yeah, I think just seasoning the meat enough before browning, before going into the wine, is enough.

TM: But that is one of the considerations. It's quite hard to season braising beef on its own when you're caramelizing it. And it's all too easy to under-season that even when you think it is. You have to not treat this like a chicken breast or something. You have to take it slightly to the next level. Am I right?

ST: Yeah, I think so. It's bigger, denser pieces of meat. You're gonna need to get some salt in there.

TM: Final consideration, technical one here. Most important. Which could have been an ingredient, I don't know why I put it as a technical consideration. It's wine. Wine itself.

ST: The wine itself. It's Beef Bourguignon, Beef Burgundy. Should we use a Burgundy wine? I don't think so. Not anymore. Maybe in the beginning, things have changed. The weather has changed, the grapes have changed. The winemaking process has changed. People's tastes have changed. I don't think a Burgundy wine is gonna be the right choice to cook this dish with.

And if we wanna talk about wine in the same way we talked about beef, I think there's a place for economy. And to be honest, I'm absolutely not in the camp of "it's gotta be good enough for me to drink for me to cook with it." I think I just want the big, bright, juicy wine part of wine for this dish. Gallo jug. Ernest and Julio Gallo. Let's go. I think I jokingly said you could just take some grape juice and thin it out with Everclear until you have something that resembles wine.

TM: I don't go that far.

ST: Yeah. I'm being facetious when I go that far. But you definitely don't need anything expensive.

TM: No. And I agree with you. And I would think maybe something more like Merlot. People have this myth, this idea that you shouldn't cook with a wine that you wouldn't drink. And I think that's so subjective too, because what am I drinking? What am I buying? What is the scenario?

So I would say it's not "don't cook with a wine that you wouldn't drink." Don't cook with wine that's undrinkable. That's where I draw the line. And there are undrinkable wines out there. But to your point, looking at variety specifically — Burgundy Pinot Noir, cooler climate region. Historically, things are changing now. It's thinner bodied. It's beloved for its savory, ethereal character as much as it is its fruit. I think when we're braising, and especially when we're braising beef, you want that fruity core. So like you said, a Merlot.

Another great thing you get from Merlot, which is also a factor in the Pinot Noir: lower tannins. That's gonna affect texture. I think that's a bigger consideration. I don't generally like to cook or braise with Cab. I might use it for finishing a sauce, something different.

So I think a Merlot, or I would say if you want a really nice middle ground, come to the good old United States of America, head out over to California, get yourself some warmer climate American Pinot — maybe something that might have seen a little bit of oak, maybe something that's creeping up there towards 13.5, 14% alcohol, 20, 25 bucks in the grocery store. Maybe a little bit less. That's gonna be a beautiful middle ground between your classic Burgundy and something that's a kind of rounder, fruitier Merlot. I think that's maybe where I'm going with this.

ST: Sounds great. We've assembled the whole thing.

TM: Yes. So what are we settling on? I think we know what we're settling on. Sother, walk us through the prep from start to finish.

ST: Start to finish. I think step one, I'm gonna render off that pancetta. This is a one pot dish. You need a one pot and you need a sheet tray — 'cause we're gonna pull things out of the pot and put 'em back in. So I'm gonna render that pancetta. I'm gonna pull it outta the pot, leaving the oil behind. I'm gonna use that oil to brown off my seasoned beef that we've already cubed up to the size that we like. And then as I get that stuff browned up, I'm gonna pull it out and then throw it into the wine where I'm gonna let that sit. I think I'm probably not going 24 hours.

TM: Let's go 12 hours or something.

ST: If I'm doing this at home while I'm preparing that night's dinner, it's probably gonna be 24 hours then. And what's still some pretty good fat in there that's now both pancetta and beef fat — I'm gonna throw in those blanched pearl onions that I have peeled so I can get just a little bit of browning on 'em. Even if it's uneven. I like it when the pearl onion has like a brown spot on one side and kind of one on the opposite side, but it's white otherwise. I'm not trying to caramelize them, I'm just trying to get a little bit of browning on them.

I'm gonna snatch those outta the pan. If I'm using carrots like you wanna do, I would get those in the pan for a minute too to get a little bit of color on them too. Pull them out to my sheet pan. And then in go the mushrooms and I'll sauté those off as well.

Now, in this scenario, I've gotta wait till tomorrow, so we'll put away all this stuff and we'll pull it back out tomorrow. I'll put that pot back on. I'll pull the meat out of the wine. I'll use some of that wine. I'll heat the pot. I'm not washing this pot overnight, by the way. I'm just putting a lid on it because I want the fond — the stuff that stuck to the bottom of the pan, the bottom of the Dutch oven.

So now I'm gonna heat that Dutch oven back up so it gets hot. I'm gonna use some of that wine to deglaze and get the fond. And then in goes the beef. And we're going to get it to temp and let it braise. Probably I'll bring it up to a simmer on the stovetop. I might add a bit of stock and/or water because I don't want it just to be wine.

No mirepoix, I don't think. Oh, I forgot to mention — what I like to do with Bourguignon is I do take an onion and I cut it into very small dice and I use that when it's time to deglaze, right? So once the pan is hot and all that fond is going, I throw in that onion, which has some moisture in it. And it sautés while I'm scraping the bottom of the pot with a wooden spoon — wooden spatula really, the flat edge one — so I can get the fond up. Then I go in with the wine.

So no mirepoix for me 'cause those onions will melt into the situation. They'll disappear. You won't really see them in the end product, but I want those pearl onions to be the onion. If we're using carrots in your scenario, they're in there too. And finally, I don't think I want celery in my beef Bourguignon, so that eliminates mirepoix.

So now we've got everything back in. We're coming up to temperature. I'm putting a lid on my Dutch oven and putting it in the oven at a low temperature and letting it ride for several hours. I'm gonna go in there and check on the doneness of the beef after at least two hours. And then once we get in closer to the end, all those vegetables can go in. I'm gonna probably bring it back up to the stovetop. I want the vegetables going late because they don't need that much cooking — when I say that much, they don't need the same amount of cooking as the beef does. But I wanted them to get a little brown and all that stuff. So they'll go back in towards the end and then I'll keep it on the stovetop again, still with the lid on the Dutch oven.

Then I can come back and check in maybe another hour and we'll see that the beef is done and the vegetables are tender and everything's looking great. If my liquid at this point is not as rich or thick as I wish it was, then I would go through an arduous step. Granted, I'll give you that, it's arduous, but don't forget, this is a dish that just takes time and love. I would pull everything out of the pot — all of the vegetables and the beef — and bring down the sauce on its own and then put everything back in and fold it together.

TM: A couple of clarification questions here. That beef doneness, for people, right? I think there's a temptation where some folks can get worried when braising. They're like, this has been cooking for a couple of hours and it's still tough. Have I overcooked this? Or is overcooking — is it always gonna be that the longer you cook this, the more the beef is gonna fall apart? It might become dry, but it's gonna fall apart. If it's still tough to the touch, it needs more time.

ST: Yeah. We got a bell curve that happens here. Your meat is gonna be as soft as it's gonna be when it's raw. Putting a little bit of browning on it, it's gonna tighten up a little. But then letting it rest overnight in the wine, it's gonna be flabby again, almost like it was when it was raw.

During the cooking stages, it's gonna tighten up quickly. It's gonna feel like a little rubber ball if you don't cook it long enough — that's the problem. So the bell curve is: you need to go past doneness. We're not really dealing with doneness in a braised dish. We're not looking to have a medium rare piece of braised meat. We're looking to have texture more than temperature. So it's gonna tighten up again, but then it'll relax again.

So you gotta go past. What's another great example? Calamari, right? You've either gotta cook it real fast or real slow. Anything in the middle sucks. So this is kinda the opposite of that bell curve. We're not gonna cook these tougher cuts fast, so we're gonna cook 'em real slow. Just trust in the process.

I think another thing that I would tell you that I forgot to mention is this particular dish is gonna be better the next day. And this is true of many braised dishes. Chili — this is essentially just French chili, with cubed beef instead of ground beef. Cubed beef chili, which I love, it's my favorite kind. So it gets better.

The reason that's happening is based on the question you asked: how done is the beef? If we look at beef or any meat that we're cooking, and we've all heard a million times in our lives that you have to rest before you slice, right? Why is that?

Picture your kitchen sponge — that's a piece of beef. And it's totally wet. So let's make sure it's been submerged in water. So now you've got this wet sponge. When you add heat to it, that's the squeeze. Squeezing that sponge is the heat. And that heat can be in the oven, on the grill, in the fryer, whatever — that's squeezing the juice out. But when you let it rest on a plate, let's say with that liquid that you just squeezed out, it reabsorbs, right? So it's tensing up and reabsorbing.

So if you cook this dish or any braised dish tonight, and you've gotten to the done part — you've done the wringing out — and if you eat it right now, it's gonna be good. Don't get me wrong. But if you leave it in that liquid again overnight, it's gonna reabsorb. And then in the reheating process, it doesn't necessarily squeeze it back out. So next day is gonna be even better.

TM: Very good. It's time to serve. What are we traditionally serving this dish with, or typically?

ST: This is some velvety, smooth, overly buttered mashed potatoes with a healthy sprinkling of delicious curly parsley.

TM: I tell you what I'm not serving it with: pasta.

ST: Which is what Julia served it with on her show. Abomination. Not the original show, but the show Jacques and Julia. She and he served it over what looked like egg noodles. So it was almost like some kind of Frankenstein cross of Beef Bourguignon and Beef Stroganoff.

TM: I can get going thicker on that and doing a sort of Italian ragù kind of thing from maybe Northern Italy. You've got some good game in there. Would it be tagliatelle, or maybe even thicker than that? I get that. But beef Bourguignon — beef Burgundy — the Burgundy wine, the Charolais. It's French. Let's not bring pasta into it. No, it's definitely going over mashed potatoes in my house.

Some folks might say even simpler — serve it with some crusty bread. Though I do believe that should just be on the table anyway with some salty butter. On the side. On the other side, I want some drinks.

But before we get into the drinks, just a good point in time for us to remind folks — if they wanna learn more about our specific recipe. We buzzed through that.

ST: We did. Plus we didn't give any amounts. Because no one's stopping to write this down.

TM: No one's stopping to write it down. And then what? You're gonna bring up the description on your phone? No. We have a better solution for you here at Sauced.

Monthly subscription. Accompanying every episode, you're gonna get these beautifully hand designed digital recipe cards with our recipes for each of the dishes. We will have the quantities on that. We will have all the steps. We will have a link back to the episode, so you might wanna listen to it all over again. But you're gonna get that for every single one of the dishes that we cover. But there's more.

ST: There is more. We're gonna do a bonus episode every month that's gonna be either about a side, a technique, or a specific ingredient. We're gonna do a little bit of a deeper dive and those will be just for our subscribers. And you'll also get that recipe on a digital platform as well.

TM: Alright, so there — Sauced, it's implied in the name. It's not just about sauce, it's about drinking as well. It's not just about cooking with booze. What is it? It's about drinking with food. Is there a traditional drinks pairing for this dish? And if so, let's discuss.

ST: I don't think there is. Cocktails aren't typically…

TM: I'm just talking alcohol.

ST: Oh, okay. Just alcohol. I think there's a traditional pairing for this. It's wine, it's probably Burgundy wine. You're more the oenophile than I am, but I'm gonna have a cocktail. I'm gonna have a cocktail with every dish we do on this show.

And again, I don't think there's a traditional cocktail pairing for most foods. Cocktails and food are hard to pair. The high burn of spiritous alcohol is a difficult thing for people to pair with food. But not me. I'm up for the challenge.

And I think this dish — being inherently French and made with wine — I think I'm going to vote for the Harvard Cocktail. The Harvard Cocktail is made with Cognac and with sweet vermouth. We've reduced this aromatized fortified wine. And frankly, during the cooking process, we've aromatized — but not fortified — the wine that's in the dish.

So it's basically a Manhattan. Has a bit of Angostura bitters. Two ounces of Cognac. Your favorite Cognac. I'm probably reaching for something economical in this situation. Commodity Cognacs that are out there that are delicious and easy to find and economical. Hennessy. Great. Why not? The VS, I think, would be a great choice for this drink.

I'm gonna use a French sweet vermouth. So it's a little bit more herbaceous. Not so thick and chocolatey. I'm gonna go standard Manhattan ratio — two parts of Cognac to one part vermouth. So that's two ounces of the Cognac to one ounce of the vermouth. I'm gonna put in two full dashes of Angostura bitters. A dash for me from an Angostura bottle is four bounces. So I always say over — and a bounce is one dash — then two more bounces for the next dash.

Stirred with plenty of ice to get it nice and cold and served up like a Manhattan with no garnish whatsoever.

TM: None whatsoever? When are you having this drink? Is this something — you said you might pair it with it, but you also alluded to it earlier. There's a lot of sort of empty time during this preparation.

ST: There's a lot of empty time — what we call passive time, right? Where things are happening, but there's nothing much for you as the cook to do when the braising is in the oven. And I think that's when I would be doing this.

I'm not gonna have a spiritous alcohol cocktail while I'm doing butchery. I'm not gonna have one while I'm meticulously with a paring knife peeling pearl onions. I don't wanna cut myself and I don't want you the listener to do that either. But I think once we've gotten to the braising stage, we're outta the danger zone.

And I'm not saying have 10 of these. Make yourself a nice Manhattan style cocktail using Cognac while your house begins to fill with this amazing aroma of this dish that you've been intentional about making, and that hopefully you're gonna share with some friends.

Also, I would like to point out, we should talk about it more. I'm gonna encourage you and I to talk about it more on the show. There's certainly something meditative about being in the kitchen by yourself. But there is plenty of room for camaraderie and communal space in the kitchen too. And many hands make light work.

TM: I agree. I think I agree in principle and I am totally behind what you're lobbying for here, and I'm saying yes.

ST: Okay, good. Because you look like you're not. Are you too particular in the kitchen? You can't have anybody in your way?

TM: Not at all. For me, cooking is the time actually when I will listen to podcasts, when I'll catch up on things where I might just have that little bit of downtime for the week. I enjoy the process of it. I like going to the grocery store. I like coming back. I like prepping the stuff. This is what I love about podcasts. It's what I do with my ears while my eyes and my hands are doing other stuff.

At the same time, I do agree with your point, especially — then I would — if it's a time of year, right? To bring it all the way back to Boxing Day or before that. Some of the most beautiful things about cooking at those times of year and the dishes we cook is they're communal, like you say. They bring people together. But you shouldn't need a major holiday to bring people together to cook.

ST: There's that, and like — why spend hours in the kitchen by yourself to then enjoy a meal for 45 minutes with the people you made it for? Get some of them in the kitchen to share some of that time with you as well. And if you've got nobody around, or if you're like Tim and you wanna listen to podcasts, then cook with us in your ears. I'm here for you. I wanna cook with you.

TM: Absolutely, cook with us. Sother, final thought for us today — what are you missing out on if you never make this dish in your life, even if it's just once?

ST: Oh, that's a great question. You are missing out on an opportunity to really see a bunch of techniques that circle back to all the smaller pieces that make up the whole of this. I think I mentioned it at the top of the show — this is a template sort of recipe. So if you can master each of the techniques in this recipe — and how you master something, of course, is practicing it — so if you can make this dish, then you'll be a little bit more inclined to make other dishes that use some of these same techniques.

Rendering, butchering, browning, braising, reducing — there's plenty of things going on in here that translate to other things. So I think what you're missing out on if you don't do this dish is the opportunity to sharpen the tools that are in your box.

TM: Fantastic. I think on my front, this is the ultimate marriage of beef and red wine for me. Better than eating any cut of steak you possibly could and serving it with a fine red wine or even just a red wine jus.

Although I do look forward to the bottle of red that I'm gonna pick out when serving this dish — this is a dish that I'm gonna go into my cellar for.

Beef Bourguignon. Let's go. Alright, Sother, so there we have it — time to put on the apron…

ST: Pull out the shaker…

TM: And get cooking…

ST: …and drinking!