Julie & Julia: Boeuf Bourguignon

Writer and director Nora Ephron was enormously passionate about food, so it’ll come as a surprise to absolutely no-one that her 2009 movie Julie & Julia features some of the most superb cooking (and eating) scenes in modern cinema.

The film, starring Meryl Streep and Amy Adams, follows Julie (Adams), a food blogger who’s determined to cook her way through the entirety of Julia Child’s iconic cookbook Mastering the Art of French Cooking in just one year — 524 recipes, in just 365 days.

It’s quite a feat, and for a lot of the movie you’ll probably find yourself resenting Julie because she’s just so annoying. The climax eventually sees our main character attempt one of Child’s most famous and much-loved recipes, boeuf bourguignon: a dish so significant to the delicate intricacies of French cooking that Julie decides to serve it to Julia Child’s former book editor. We’ll come back to this dish a bit later.

The plot, thankfully, isn’t all about Julie — for the other half of the film, we see flashbacks of Julia Child (played by Streep) during her time in Paris in the 1950s. Streep nails the unflappable, enthusiastic manner and distinctively warbling voice that Child is so well known for, as we see the American cook take classes at Le Cordon Bleu, where she is the only woman in attendance.

“What is it that you really like to do?”

“Eat!”

In 1961, Child finally releases her first cookbook, Mastering the Art of French Cooking alongside friends and fellow food writers Simone Beck and Louisette Berthole, which becomes a bestseller and huge global success. The rest, as they say, is history.

There’s a lot of complicated, frankly near-impossible recipes in Child’s first cookbook, but boeuf bourguignon is a divine beginner’s dish. We threw ours into a slow cooker and left it to simmer for about 9 hours, and it was so, so delicious — pop on a hob and leave on a low heat if you haven’t got a slow cooker.

To make 6–8 servings of Boeuf Bourguignon, you’ll need the following:

• 3 tbsp vegetable oil
• 1½ kg stewing steak, cut into small chunks
• 2 large onions, chopped
• 2 carrots, chopped
• 2 celery stalks, chopped
• 2 bay leaves
• 2 rosemary or thyme sprigs
• 3 tbsp plain flour
• 750ml red wine
• 1 beef stock cube
• 1 tsp caster sugar
• 2 tbsp tomato purée
• 100g unsmoked bacon lardons
• 6 small shallots
• 300g mushrooms (I used portobello, because they’re my favourite)
• Mashed potato or crusty bread to serve
• A sprinkle of fresh parsley

Recipe

• Heat 2 tbsp of vegetable oil in a large frying pan. Season the meat and fry for 3–4 mins in batches until browned all over, scooping out each batch with a slotted spoon and transferring the browned meat to a plate.
• Tip the onion, carrot and celery into the pan and fry for 5–10 minutes until soft. Add the herbs and flour, and cook for a further 2 mins.
• Pour a splash of the wine into a bowl, then add the stock cube, sugar and tomato purée and mix to form a paste.
• Scrape the paste into the onion mix and pour in the remaining wine. Bring the mixture to a bubble, then stir in the browned beef and top up with a splash of water to cover the meat if needed.
• Simmer on a low heat for 6–8 hours until the meat is falling apart but still holding its shape. I used a slow cooker, but you can achieve the same results by leaving a large pan to simmer on a hob on a very low heat.
• About 35 mins before serving, heat the remaining oil in a pan. Fry the bacon, shallots and mushrooms for 5–8 mins until caramelised, then tip into the slow cooker / larger pan.
• Simmer the stew gently on high (for slow cooker) or on a medium heat (for hob) for 30 mins. If you want thicker gravy, use the reduce function on your slow cooker or leave the stew uncovered. Serve with mashed potatoes or crusty bread, and sprinkle with a little fresh parsley.

Recipe from BBC Good Food.

As always, if you give this recipe a go yourself, please drop me a line at @fromfilmtofork on Instagram. I’d love to see your creations! x