As a Belgian, I strongly approve using Leffe Bruin for this stew. Nice choice! We don't make this with lager beer. The real Belgian version binds the sauce using a slice of bread spread with mustard. It cooks in the stew and dissolves completely, binding the sauce and giving it the character with the mustard (and not vinegar, which indeed would make it too sharp).
I use St. Bernardus 12 instead of Leffe, but I don't think it's easely accesible outside Belgium. I also do "poepgelei" (a jam of pears) and dark chocolade in it. Do nut use vinegar in it or bacon (seen a lot of americans put bacon in it as well. BIG nono here).
I love it. You’re adjusting to your taste, you’re fixing flavors as you go, YOU’RE COOKING! You’re doing the thing you set out to do, to learn to cook, and now we’re learning from you! You’re killin’ it!
The Belgian beer originally used was probably an ale. Julia probably specified lager because lagers tend to be less hopped and not as bitter. One trick worth knowing about when the vinegar or tomatoes have too much character (too sour) is to add small amounts (knife tips at a time) of baking soda (not powder but soda). Stir it in a let the frothing stop. Taste it. It is still too sour add a bit more. Works for chili when the tomatoes are too sour too.
Julia Child also only specified ingredients that were reasonably accessible to Americans, which at the time was unlikely to include Belgian style beers.
Dark ale is a good alternative to this stew. I make a similar stew with Guiness Stout, mushrooms and tomato paste added. Happy Holidays Jamie! Have a happy and healthy New Year's.
A simpler version of Carbonnade Flamande (without the draining and enhancing of the sauce) used to be one of my standbys for guests. I believe it's traditional to serve it on boiled potatoes, some like rice, I prefer noodles. A Flemish person I knew insisted that a slice of dark sour rye in the stew was essential -- it dissolves as it cook.
It shouldn't be dark sour rye. A slice of white bread with mustard on it and put upside down on the beef dissolves and gives thickness to the sauce. The mustard helps with the acidity.😋
@@krankarvolund7771 I'm belgian and in my family we like to use gingerbread with mustard and sometimes a little more honey ! We also add vegetables, I'm surprised there wasn't any other than onions
@@chalovemsp845 Belgian too and from memory (I'm not the one cooking, bad at it) we use Liège syrup in the sauce XD (Tbh, coming from Liège, we use that syrup in way to much recipe XD)
Hey I've nerding out on this. Thank you for doing this. I think our generation tends to think of these old cookbooks as outdated. Just another reminder that people before us did alot of Trial-and-error
It's also so interesting to me to see how recipes change with the technology (better ovens = shorter cooking time) and trade relations. Julia wasn't too long ago, but she rarely used smoked paprika, and cloves were reserved for Christmas items. Most modern bœuf bourguignon recipes would liberally use clove, because it's no longer that expensive and it's widely available now, but not in Julia's time
At the pub i used to work at, my boss wanted a similar stew/beer gravy thing. I threw everything I had at it, to correct the flavour. Worcestershire sauce (Woosta, whatever) saved the day. He wanted "London Pride" gravy with this.....cooking with beer is not easy. But yes, one for you and one for the dish LOL! Thanks for your video! Her original recipe for Bourguignon was one of the BEST things I have ever eaten....next to duck confit...
This looks fantastic! Once again you have my mouth watering! BTW: Cuts of meat can have different names throughout the U.S., too. It can be very confusing.
Crying onion tips. 1. Put them in the fridge for at least 30mins before using them, over night is best. 2. Don’t cut off the root, the hairy end. 3. Breathe though your mouth. 4. Keep a cup of water on your cutting board. I have tested all of these, 1 & 2 work most of the time. 3 & 4 only have worked once for me. You can also get onion goggles too.
I bought onion goggles. Unfortunately my face was the wrong shape for the googles. Or the goggles were the wrong shape for my face. In any case, I couldn’t get a seal. I continued to sob uncontrollably. I gave the goggles away.
Belgian Carbonnade still deserves more love… First one I made was from the book Joy of Cooking, still one of the simplest and most successful recipes I can improvise on. Eg. using bison stew meat in place of beef, and going with a big Belgian Strong Ale like Trois Pistoles. A little splash of dry oloroso sherry or Tawny Port is good too. I virtually never use flour or thickeners in my braises and stews.
Another great video. Instead of sugar and vinegar, I think it's traditional to add a piece of gingerbread (or several ginger snaps) spread with mustard at the end of the cooking. That adds the right balance of flavor and thickens the sauce, all at the same time.
The traditional thickening is either a piece of bread or "peperkoek" (a kind of rye honey cake i guess) both spread liberally with mustard. The beer you would typically use is a darker sweeter less alcoholic "table beer" so the normal bread+mustard is sufficient. Of course some people prefer it a bit sweeter :)
Yea! An Anti-Chef Christmas present! I think it would be great if you did a special edition video telling us what you think of the new "Julia" biography/documentary. (If you can find it. I hate "limited releases." I'm only seeing expensive rentals on streaming services. They have to start selling it outright eventually...)
A tip next time you adding some fresh herbs , do a bouquet garni or like a sachet d epices , its like your fresh herbs and spices wraped in a long slices of leek and then wrapped with meat thread so its not falling appard and if you cut the thread a litle longer you can wrap it arround your pots handle so when you finish you can take your bouqet easy out , no need for fishing , specially when you add spices like peppercorn ...
Three tricks Ive learned over the years. 1. Like snake venom, younger onions are more pungent 2. Breathe with your mouth not your nose 3. The cells of onions grow from root to top. So, if you cut vertically instead of vertically instead of horizontally, you cut less cells and less chemicals are released.
He's got a link in the description to a list on Amazon of what he uses. Initially, you may only see 2-3 items; clicking on one of them should bring up a full list. Hope this helps.
That looked so delicious I think I’ll try making it. I’ll be using a Dutch oven though! I was worried every time you moved that pan it was going to slosh out all over the place.
Sulfur in onion juice mixes with your tears and forms sulfuric acid. Keep you hands with onion juice away from your face to reduce tears. Also if you cut root last it helps.
Am a bit late to comment on this but can i add the sugar while i am cooking the onions? And the flour also i feel like toasting/cooking with the onions will help and I'll finish by deglazing the pan with the beef stock.
As a belgian I've never seen any1 make a beef stew like this. Idk if you were meant to make "'stoofvlees" cuz this is not it. -Way too many onions -Gingerbread with some Ghent musterd on top is needed (can also use bread) - cooking onions, not adding the onions on top - Didn't use t he right herbs - need belgian fries & mayo to top it off Grtz
You can actually get variants in how much any given onion has of the substance that causes the tearing effect. It's like how sometimes a citrus fruit can be more or less acidic. So if you have a sharp knife (rupturing less cells, releasing less of the problem chemicals) and a friendly onion, you're golden, but sometimes no matter how sharp the knife, the onion is just loaded with stuff that hates you. Evidently if you chill the onions beforehand, it can help because it makes the chemical reactions less volatile. Oh, the thing responsible for all this is syn-Propanethial-S-oxide. Good luck ever saying that on camera.
Great job! Open flame and no tears when cutting onions. I cut them near the gas stove when on. You can try a candle. Not sure if that will work. Get yourself a Dutch oven for stews. They are deeper than the pan you are using.
Looks a lot like a British beef and ale stew. In the UK "chuck steak" we call braising steak, which is a better name. My grandmother would make this kind of stew in a low oven while she went out to the market or did laundry, because it benefits from a long slow cook. It goes great with mashed potato.
if you add beer to the meat, it is better that the beer is at room temperature and not straight from the fridge. it prevents the meat from shrinking and becoming tougher. that's a Belgian tip, enjoy it. and don't use vinegar 🤮
I still don’t understand why people claim onions make you cry. My grandmother cooked for more than 75 years and I have been cooking at home more than 55 years as well as professionally in restaurants and we never cried while cutting onions. We never did anything special. I don’t wear glasses. My grandmother did though. We made many dishes with onions like liver and onion, Canadian hamburgers in onion gravy, French onion soup, baloney and onion, etc
It's just a matter of age really. The longer you go back, the more cookbooks imply things without mentioning them in detail. Once you go back 100-200 years, basically at least 50% of the recipe is "missing", because they just thought people using a cookbook wouldn't be completely useless in a kitchen. This book is already around 60 years old now.
I do my stew much like this with Guiness in a large dutch oven. Use the dutch oven and you can do all the browning and stewing in the same pot with plenty of slop room. And the sauce with vinegar and sugar at the end is foreign to me.
Looks delicious, just the recipe for a family dinner with our children and grand children, but I would trim some of the fat from the meat before cooking. To warm the cockles of someone’s heart is to “give someone warm and happy feelings”, so that is what the stew did for you.
@ANTI-CHEF : As a Belgian I totally disapprove of the vinegar. Instead we tend to use one or two big slices of (preferably brown) bread with mustard on (use a medium or strong mustard not a sweet one). If you want to boost the flavour profile and make your stew taste richer, use a couple of slices of gingerbread instead of the regular brown bread to spread the mustard on and to add to your sauce. This will have a binding effect and the gingerbread will add flavour, just don't overdo it. In case you might have used too little brown bread or gingerbread and the consistency of your sauce is still a bit too liquid (and only then!), you still can cheat and remedy that with some corn starch. Another way to tweak your flavour profile is by changing the quality of your beer. Always use a (preferably Belgian) brown strong ale or even a trappist beer (if you can't find those and they are within your price range). Leffe brown is a good start as a basis, but it's a mass produced highly commercial beer. There are better ones out there, but i agree that they also must fit your wallet. Still, since the beer is such a key ingredient of your sauce you might want to consider that if you use a better quality of beer, this also will shape the taste of your meal (doesn't mean you need to go very expensive and extravagant either, but yeah some better quality will have its effects). An also very important extra note: yes, the cooking time is fine, but this dish you want to make a day in advance. This way once you have cooked the meal, you can let it rest for a day, a night or at least a few hours. This really does wonders for the flavour. Believe me, the day after cooking this dish will be sooo much better. It is a long time in advance, but it's a great for when you have guests over because you did the hard work the day before and now you just have to heat up that delight. Bon appetit ;)
It’s the temperature of the onions. I keep them in the fridge, even though I know I’m not suppose to. Room temp onions sting the eyes. For me at least.
I’m surprised Julia did the cornstarch thing. Every other recipe I’ve seen for this either dredges the meat in flour first or you add slices of bread that disintegrates. And although perhaps not as authentic but after reading many blog posts it seems most people prefer to add Dijon mustard instead of vinegar,
If you ever want to make this but don't have the time to cook this meat as tender as this, use pig cheeks instead. Amazing flavor and takes less time to get tender.
The vinegar was WRONG, and that’s why you were dissatisfied at the end. (NOT your fault, of course; Julia made the mistake, and you were just following her recipe.) The authentic thickener and “character” builder comes in the form of a heftily mustard-slathered slice of bread that is placed on top of the stew when you put it to cook. The bread ‘melts’ away into the stew, and the mustard too incorporates itself as it stews. That’s all the vinegar you need in this rich dish.
The phrase is “That warms the cockles of my heart.” Thought to date back to the 1600s with cockles being a corruption of the Latin word for the ventricle’s.
Based on my experience there is a big difference between inter and intra muscular fat. The intra-muscular fat is the white you see in the muscle and is responsible for the marbled look of red meat. When that cooks over a long period of time it turns into gelatin. The inter-muscular fat is the big globs of fat that you were showing in the video. In my experience, that fat does not break down even after being cooked over a long period of time. Some may enjoy eating those bits of fat but I've always hated the slimey texture and mouth feel that it has.
Okay. I made this. It didn't come out like yours and I know why. BEEF FLOATS. I added WAY too much liquid trying to get the beer/stock to "barely cover the beef". LMAO. And instead of straining and reducing the liquid after removing it from the oven, I added the slurry right away and immediately realized my mistake. It was far too much liquid to reduce. The cornstarch completely cooked out and I was left with a copious amount of bland ass, pale brown onion water. I'm going to try again though.
Please visit Ommegang Brewery in Cooperstown,NY. Visit the website, and you'll know why. Love cooking with beer. The only way to cook corned beef and cabbage.
Jamie, in order to not cry while cutting onions you need to remember to avoid forming an emotional bond with them. Great video!
😭🤣🤣🤣
Okay now that's funny 😄
Bwhahahaha!
A++ comment.
I mean it's kind of a dad joke, but that just makes it better
As a Belgian, I strongly approve using Leffe Bruin for this stew. Nice choice! We don't make this with lager beer. The real Belgian version binds the sauce using a slice of bread spread with mustard. It cooks in the stew and dissolves completely, binding the sauce and giving it the character with the mustard (and not vinegar, which indeed would make it too sharp).
Yummy! Gotta try that!
I was about to type that, happy you did :)
We use ginger bread slices spread with mustard, which sit on top of the stew - you mix them in once they have basically fallen apart.
Your version sounds so good! Jamie/Julia’s version makes me want to try it, and your version makes me think I definitely need to make it
I use St. Bernardus 12 instead of Leffe, but I don't think it's easely accesible outside Belgium. I also do "poepgelei" (a jam of pears) and dark chocolade in it.
Do nut use vinegar in it or bacon (seen a lot of americans put bacon in it as well. BIG nono here).
I love it. You’re adjusting to your taste, you’re fixing flavors as you go, YOU’RE COOKING! You’re doing the thing you set out to do, to learn to cook, and now we’re learning from you! You’re killin’ it!
I am impressed that Jamie has now reached the point where he can rebalance the flavour of an overly acidic dish 👍
The Belgian beer originally used was probably an ale. Julia probably specified lager because lagers tend to be less hopped and not as bitter. One trick worth knowing about when the vinegar or tomatoes have too much character (too sour) is to add small amounts (knife tips at a time) of baking soda (not powder but soda). Stir it in a let the frothing stop. Taste it. It is still too sour add a bit more. Works for chili when the tomatoes are too sour too.
Leffe almost got a burnt bitterness, maybe not the best choice, but it's pretty nice to drink ;)
Julia Child also only specified ingredients that were reasonably accessible to Americans, which at the time was unlikely to include Belgian style beers.
Flipping the onions, very impressive I don’t think I could do that❤
Yummmm it’s cold here today in Melbourne Australia and a bowl of this would sure warm the cockles of my heart.
As Snowieken said earlier. As a Belgian I feel this is a very French way to cook a Belgian dish XD
Sunday roast was generally beef chuck, usually cooked as pot roast when I was a kid. So delicious!
Dark ale is a good alternative to this stew. I make a similar stew with Guiness Stout, mushrooms and tomato paste added. Happy Holidays Jamie! Have a happy and healthy New Year's.
Beef and Guiness is a traditional irish stew I think ^^
It seems that every region of Europe mixed beef with its favorite alcohol XD
A simpler version of Carbonnade Flamande (without the draining and enhancing of the sauce) used to be one of my standbys for guests. I believe it's traditional to serve it on boiled potatoes, some like rice, I prefer noodles. A Flemish person I knew insisted that a slice of dark sour rye in the stew was essential -- it dissolves as it cook.
It shouldn't be dark sour rye. A slice of white bread with mustard on it and put upside down on the beef dissolves and gives thickness to the sauce. The mustard helps with the acidity.😋
I've seen soft gingerbread being used instead of dark rye ^^
@@krankarvolund7771 I'm belgian and in my family we like to use gingerbread with mustard and sometimes a little more honey ! We also add vegetables, I'm surprised there wasn't any other than onions
@@chalovemsp845 Yeah I forgot, I've just seen one recipe in video, I forgot they put mmustard on the bread ^^
@@chalovemsp845 Belgian too and from memory (I'm not the one cooking, bad at it) we use Liège syrup in the sauce XD
(Tbh, coming from Liège, we use that syrup in way to much recipe XD)
I'm making this right now. It's in the oven, and I think so far, it's going well. Going to serve alongside leeks gratin.
Hey I've nerding out on this. Thank you for doing this. I think our generation tends to think of these old cookbooks as outdated. Just another reminder that people before us did alot of Trial-and-error
It's also so interesting to me to see how recipes change with the technology (better ovens = shorter cooking time) and trade relations. Julia wasn't too long ago, but she rarely used smoked paprika, and cloves were reserved for Christmas items. Most modern bœuf bourguignon recipes would liberally use clove, because it's no longer that expensive and it's widely available now, but not in Julia's time
At the pub i used to work at, my boss wanted a similar stew/beer gravy thing. I threw everything I had at it, to correct the flavour. Worcestershire sauce (Woosta, whatever) saved the day. He wanted "London Pride" gravy with this.....cooking with beer is not easy. But yes, one for you and one for the dish LOL! Thanks for your video! Her original recipe for Bourguignon was one of the BEST things I have ever eaten....next to duck confit...
This looks fantastic! Once again you have my mouth watering! BTW: Cuts of meat can have different names throughout the U.S., too. It can be very confusing.
The fact the braising pan can barely hold all the ingredients is why she told you to use a casserole pan. Never distrust Julia. :)
Hi Jamie - good job! I haven't cooked many of Julia's recipes, but this is one I did try and enjoy. I need to do it again!
3:30 Actually, there's a fair amount of collagen in the "fatty" sections, too, and that does great things for the sauce.
Crying onion tips. 1. Put them in the fridge for at least 30mins before using them, over night is best. 2. Don’t cut off the root, the hairy end. 3. Breathe though your mouth. 4. Keep a cup of water on your cutting board.
I have tested all of these, 1 & 2 work most of the time. 3 & 4 only have worked once for me. You can also get onion goggles too.
amen to goggles
I bought onion goggles. Unfortunately my face was the wrong shape for the googles. Or the goggles were the wrong shape for my face. In any case, I couldn’t get a seal. I continued to sob uncontrollably. I gave the goggles away.
Volume Fruit Fly is my favorite edition.
Belgian Carbonnade still deserves more love… First one I made was from the book Joy of Cooking, still one of the simplest and most successful recipes I can improvise on.
Eg. using bison stew meat in place of beef, and going with a big Belgian Strong Ale like Trois Pistoles. A little splash of dry oloroso sherry or Tawny Port is good too.
I virtually never use flour or thickeners in my braises and stews.
I just got Volume 1 and 2 for Christmas!
You have come a long way
I'm proud of you
Another great video. Instead of sugar and vinegar, I think it's traditional to add a piece of gingerbread (or several ginger snaps) spread with mustard at the end of the cooking. That adds the right balance of flavor and thickens the sauce, all at the same time.
100% definitely needs that
The traditional thickening is either a piece of bread or "peperkoek" (a kind of rye honey cake i guess) both spread liberally with mustard. The beer you would typically use is a darker sweeter less alcoholic "table beer" so the normal bread+mustard is sufficient. Of course some people prefer it a bit sweeter :)
I put mustard on 1 piece of white bread, and Liege syrup on another, for the sweetness.
Man that looks so good. I intend to recreate this over the weekend.
Yea! An Anti-Chef Christmas present!
I think it would be great if you did a special edition video telling us what you think of the new "Julia" biography/documentary. (If you can find it. I hate "limited releases." I'm only seeing expensive rentals on streaming services. They have to start selling it outright eventually...)
Leffe is a good choice. I like to drink it! And if it's good enough to drink, it's good enough to cook with!
dang that final product looks so crazy good
A tip next time you adding some fresh herbs , do a bouquet garni or like a sachet d epices , its like your fresh herbs and spices wraped in a long slices of leek and then wrapped with meat thread so its not falling appard and if you cut the thread a litle longer you can wrap it arround your pots handle so when you finish you can take your bouqet easy out , no need for fishing , specially when you add spices like peppercorn ...
That looked incredible!
I feel you, Jamie. As a person from the UK, I have to go check a chart any time a cooking show mentions "New York Strip" (it's sirloin).
As a Belgian I love to add beer into my dishes, just like my stew but also into my mussels for example
Which muscles? Biceps, glutes?...
@@kenken6550 Where am I talking about muscles?
Three tricks Ive learned over the years.
1. Like snake venom, younger onions are more pungent
2. Breathe with your mouth not your nose
3. The cells of onions grow from root to top. So, if you cut vertically instead of vertically instead of horizontally, you cut less cells and less chemicals are released.
Recette en longue française svp .merci.
Sont formidable vos plats de toutes les cultures mondiaux.
Where did you get that amazing set of enameled cast iron pots & pans? Everytime I see them I want to buy them 😊
He's got a link in the description to a list on Amazon of what he uses. Initially, you may only see 2-3 items; clicking on one of them should bring up a full list. Hope this helps.
@@sandradavis7132 Thank you so much
@@sandradavis7132 Good golly, those pots and pans are like 300$+ each 👀
Wow, looks so yum🤤🤤🤤 very well done Jamie! 😃 Merry Christmas to you and all your loved ones 🎄🤶🏼😄
Looks delicious! Try it with Guinness too! Merry Christmas! 🎄
My recipe you add malt vinegar at the end with a couple of tablespoons of brown sugar…sweet and tart.
Great video, as usual. I see even in your more current videos you call cornstarch "corn flour". I guess some habits are hard to break. 🤣
Yeah I picked that up while living in Europe. I don’t realise I’m saying it. Some places called corn starch “corn flour”
That looked so delicious I think I’ll try making it. I’ll be using a Dutch oven though! I was worried every time you moved that pan it was going to slosh out all over the place.
Wow that looks amazing Jamie!
Sulfur in onion juice mixes with your tears and forms sulfuric acid. Keep you hands with onion juice away from your face to reduce tears. Also if you cut root last it helps.
Am a bit late to comment on this but can i add the sugar while i am cooking the onions? And the flour also i feel like toasting/cooking with the onions will help and I'll finish by deglazing the pan with the beef stock.
Using a mandolin for the onion prep makes life a lot easier.
Happy New your Jamie to you and your wife! Love watching! Here’s to 2022🍾! Bon Appetit!
My Belgian mother always added prunes to her carbonade flammande.
Delicious!
Happy holidays! That's a great fast recipe. I've never heard of it. I think I'll try.
My favorite recipe for one of my favorite beef dishes. I like using Belgian style pilsner, but that's just me.
Looks absolutely amazing and delicious. Unfortunately though, here in the UK to buy that amount of beef I'd probably have to remortgage my house. 😂
As a belgian I've never seen any1 make a beef stew like this. Idk if you were meant to make "'stoofvlees" cuz this is not it.
-Way too many onions
-Gingerbread with some Ghent musterd on top is needed (can also use bread)
- cooking onions, not adding the onions on top
- Didn't use t he right herbs
- need belgian fries & mayo to top it off
Grtz
You can actually get variants in how much any given onion has of the substance that causes the tearing effect. It's like how sometimes a citrus fruit can be more or less acidic. So if you have a sharp knife (rupturing less cells, releasing less of the problem chemicals) and a friendly onion, you're golden, but sometimes no matter how sharp the knife, the onion is just loaded with stuff that hates you. Evidently if you chill the onions beforehand, it can help because it makes the chemical reactions less volatile.
Oh, the thing responsible for all this is syn-Propanethial-S-oxide. Good luck ever saying that on camera.
I want to know HOW you balanced out the vinegar at the end. The only thing I can think of is adding butter, but I’m sure that I’m missing something.
Brilliant!
CRISCO!!!! You got to be kidding. By the way I really like your videos. CARRY ON!!!!
Great job! Open flame and no tears when cutting onions. I cut them near the gas stove when on. You can try a candle. Not sure if that will work. Get yourself a Dutch oven for stews. They are deeper than the pan you are using.
Looks a lot like a British beef and ale stew. In the UK "chuck steak" we call braising steak, which is a better name. My grandmother would make this kind of stew in a low oven while she went out to the market or did laundry, because it benefits from a long slow cook. It goes great with mashed potato.
Stop it with that packing tape! You crack me up!! 😂😂😂
You are sooooo funny. I love you. This is a fabulous site.
I loved it. I’m going to try it with beer now
if you add beer to the meat, it is better that the beer is at room temperature and not straight from the fridge. it prevents the meat from shrinking and becoming tougher. that's a Belgian tip, enjoy it. and don't use vinegar 🤮
I still don’t understand why people claim onions make you cry. My grandmother cooked for more than 75 years and I have been cooking at home more than 55 years as well as professionally in restaurants and we never cried while cutting onions. We never did anything special. I don’t wear glasses. My grandmother did though. We made many dishes with onions like liver and onion, Canadian hamburgers in onion gravy, French onion soup, baloney and onion, etc
I love these videos, but after viewing many recipes, Julia needed a cooking editor, you should make a cookbook that makes her recipes make sense!
It's just a matter of age really. The longer you go back, the more cookbooks imply things without mentioning them in detail. Once you go back 100-200 years, basically at least 50% of the recipe is "missing", because they just thought people using a cookbook wouldn't be completely useless in a kitchen.
This book is already around 60 years old now.
I do my stew much like this with Guiness in a large dutch oven. Use the dutch oven and you can do all the browning and stewing in the same pot with plenty of slop room. And the sauce with vinegar and sugar at the end is foreign to me.
Rock on with that dark ale. This is not unlike a family favorite of ours, Guinness stew.
Looks delicious, just the recipe for a family dinner with our children and grand children, but I would trim some of the fat from the meat before cooking. To warm the cockles of someone’s heart is to “give someone warm and happy feelings”, so that is what the stew did for you.
@ANTI-CHEF : As a Belgian I totally disapprove of the vinegar. Instead we tend to use one or two big slices of (preferably brown) bread with mustard on (use a medium or strong mustard not a sweet one). If you want to boost the flavour profile and make your stew taste richer, use a couple of slices of gingerbread instead of the regular brown bread to spread the mustard on and to add to your sauce. This will have a binding effect and the gingerbread will add flavour, just don't overdo it. In case you might have used too little brown bread or gingerbread and the consistency of your sauce is still a bit too liquid (and only then!), you still can cheat and remedy that with some corn starch.
Another way to tweak your flavour profile is by changing the quality of your beer. Always use a (preferably Belgian) brown strong ale or even a trappist beer (if you can't find those and they are within your price range). Leffe brown is a good start as a basis, but it's a mass produced highly commercial beer. There are better ones out there, but i agree that they also must fit your wallet. Still, since the beer is such a key ingredient of your sauce you might want to consider that if you use a better quality of beer, this also will shape the taste of your meal (doesn't mean you need to go very expensive and extravagant either, but yeah some better quality will have its effects).
An also very important extra note: yes, the cooking time is fine, but this dish you want to make a day in advance. This way once you have cooked the meal, you can let it rest for a day, a night or at least a few hours. This really does wonders for the flavour. Believe me, the day after cooking this dish will be sooo much better. It is a long time in advance, but it's a great for when you have guests over because you did the hard work the day before and now you just have to heat up that delight.
Bon appetit ;)
It’s the temperature of the onions. I keep them in the fridge, even though I know I’m not suppose to. Room temp onions sting the eyes. For me at least.
Try Portuguese recipes. You’ll be surprised how simple and delicious hey are
I'm Potuguese and I approve this comment!! haha
Hilarious and maaannnn that look delicious!
Supposedly you avoid tears from onions if you don't touch the root.
In my experience that hasn't helped, I just accepted it.
Bay leaves add something subtle and necessary.
I keep telling cooking show hosts that if you slice your onions over by your gas stove with two burners on you won't have any tears.
I’m surprised Julia did the cornstarch thing. Every other recipe I’ve seen for this either dredges the meat in flour first or you add slices of bread that disintegrates. And although perhaps not as authentic but after reading many blog posts it seems most people prefer to add Dijon mustard instead of vinegar,
So yummy 😋
When I half an onion, I quickly rinse it and the knife to help with the tears
.
Hmm, this is pretty much my brisket recipe.
Yes, animals are delicious! where did you get your pans?
If you put a thin damp kitchen cloth under your cutting board it will not wiggle.
If you ever want to make this but don't have the time to cook this meat as tender as this, use pig cheeks instead. Amazing flavor and takes less time to get tender.
The vinegar was WRONG, and that’s why you were dissatisfied at the end. (NOT your fault, of course; Julia made the mistake, and you were just following her recipe.) The authentic thickener and “character” builder comes in the form of a heftily mustard-slathered slice of bread that is placed on top of the stew when you put it to cook. The bread ‘melts’ away into the stew, and the mustard too incorporates itself as it stews. That’s all the vinegar you need in this rich dish.
I do add vinaigre in mine but a little and I do use pain d'épices instead of bread.
Please get a cookbook. I'll buy it in a minute.
I use Chimay Grande Reserve (Blue Label) for this recipe. A lager is too sour.
My mom says to avoid tears chill the onion before chopping it
A hack I thought was BS until I tried it is to chew gum while cutting onions. I keep some in my spice cabinet.
I made this today. But mine was so pale compared to yours. It must be the lager that made the difference. 😊
Use a moistened paper towel by your onions as onion juices are attracted to moisture like in your eyeballs!
Aw man I read that as "Belgian Bear Stew" 🐻
Nice One. Woo Hoo,
If you keep onions in the fridge they will not make your eyes water ( lowers the release of propanethiol-S-oxide).
To prevent onion tears, clench a match between your front teeth. It works.
A braising/casserole dish and a Dutch oven are all the same keep up yer guid work thanks.
My mom always serve this sauce with homemade gnocchi
The phrase is “That warms the cockles of my heart.” Thought to date back to the 1600s with cockles being a corruption of the Latin word for the ventricle’s.
Looks absolutely delicious but I would have cut off some of the fat from the beef because you said it was pretty fatty at the end.
I feel this was one of your least dramatic cooks :)....is it because the dish is easy or is it because you're improving
Based on my experience there is a big difference between inter and intra muscular fat. The intra-muscular fat is the white you see in the muscle and is responsible for the marbled look of red meat. When that cooks over a long period of time it turns into gelatin. The inter-muscular fat is the big globs of fat that you were showing in the video. In my experience, that fat does not break down even after being cooked over a long period of time. Some may enjoy eating those bits of fat but I've always hated the slimey texture and mouth feel that it has.
Unlike you, I love that bit. It makes my lips sticky and it makes me happy to eat those fat pockets
take out the vinigar and just use beef stock or water to make the slurry.
also, nothing goes better with this stew then freshly made fries
Best to be metric imperial ambidextrous. simple guide 4" is approx 100mm
Okay. I made this. It didn't come out like yours and I know why. BEEF FLOATS. I added WAY too much liquid trying to get the beer/stock to "barely cover the beef". LMAO. And instead of straining and reducing the liquid after removing it from the oven, I added the slurry right away and immediately realized my mistake. It was far too much liquid to reduce. The cornstarch completely cooked out and I was left with a copious amount of bland ass, pale brown onion water. I'm going to try again though.
Please visit Ommegang Brewery in Cooperstown,NY. Visit the website, and you'll know why. Love cooking with beer. The only way to cook corned beef and cabbage.
Great as always, missing the metric system only :/