Beef bourguignon

A braise whose sauce is the cooking liquid, reduced. The browning at the start is not a formality — it is where every bit of the colour comes from.

• 1200 g — beef shin
• 750 ml — dry red wine
• 150 g — smoked bacon
• 250 g — pearl onions
• 250 g — button mushrooms
• 200 g — carrot
• 150 g — onion
• 30 g — plain flour
• 400 ml — brown stock
• 12 g — garlic
• 2 pc — bay leaf
• 2 pc — thyme
• 8 g — salt

1. Dry the beef and brown it in batches over a high heat, leaving room around each piece. Crowded, the meat releases water and boils grey — and grey meat cannot be browned later.
2. Render the bacon in the casserole, brown the onion and carrot in the fat, dust with flour and cook it two minutes until it smells toasted.
3. Pour in the wine, scrape the base clean, add the meat, stock, garlic and herbs, and cook at 150 °C for three hours with the lid on. It should never boil in the oven either.
4. Cook the pearl onions and mushrooms separately in butter and add them for the last ten minutes. Cooked in from the start they disappear into the sauce and the dish loses its texture.
5. Lift the meat out, reduce the liquid until it coats a spoon, then return everything. Better still, cool it overnight — the fat lifts off in a sheet and the flavour settles.