FFwD - My Go To Beef Daube

I do love comfort foods. There is nothing like a hearty stew on a cold night to make the world seem a brighter place, as it warms you from the inside out. My Mum used to make a beef stew she called Hotch Potch. I have tried many times to make hotch potch just like Mum's, but it is never the same. Mine tends to be a watery, less flavoursome imitation of the real thing.

Although it is summer here, my pick for this week's French Fridays With Dorie was My Go to Beef Daube - a type of rich beef stew with root vegetables, bacon and red wine. Although it was not perhaps what I'd normally make in summer, it was a delicious, rich dish which I nonetheless enjoyed.


The lighting gods were not smiling on me when I finally completed My Go To Beef Daube for this week's French Fridays With Dorie - so unfortunately, the best photo that I have of he finished product is the one that you see at the top of this post.

However, so that you get a feel for what this stew is like, I took some step by step shots when the lighting was much better.

First you dice the beef - Dorie used chuck, I used blade:



You also dice up a few slices of bacon:


and some carrots, parsnips and onion (I just threw in some garlic cloves as I didn't have a full bulb of garlic):


You then brown the bacon in the pan:


then the beef:


After setting aside the meat, you fry up the finely sliced onion:


followed by the rest of the veges, then the whole lot goes back into the pot with the red wine (or in my case, a mixture of red wine and water because I didn't have enough wine):


The daube then cooks for 2 1/2 hours all up in the oven. Voila! You have beef daube (and a kitchen that smells like cooking meat).

The long cooking time for this stew leaves the meat soft and tender, while the red wine adds a richness of flavour and smell.

This is a beautiful stew, which I will certainly make again - in the winter.

To see what the other FFwD members made this week, visit the LYL section for this week at the FFwD website.