Mastering the Art of French Roast Beef

Roast Beast

I love roast beef. I love it in the fall with carrots and turnips and parsnips and onions and potatoes and any other delicious root vegetable you can think of. I love how it gets all fall-apart-y in little strands of tender beefiness. I love the gravy. But, in the interest of full disclosure, I have to admit that I am not ever fancy when it comes to cooking roast beef. My go-to roast beef recipe involves browning a roast on all sides and throwing it in a crock pot with a can of mushroom soup, a packet of onion soup/dip mix (oooh onion dip and ruffles sounds alarmingly good... I think I'm hungry), carrots, onions and potatoes then leaving it cooking on low while I go to work. It's certainly not low in sodium, but it's easy and delicious - try it!

Today, though, I am making "real" roast beef (real "French" roast beef) from Mastering the Art of French Cooking. According to Julia Child:

Braised beef is a wonderful party dish; it is not only delicious to smell it really is, I can smell it cooking right now, look at, and eat, but you have no worries about overdone meat and you can cook it ahead of time if you need to. Boeuf a la mode is traditionally garnished with braised carrots and onions just like from my crock pot! and is usually accompanied by buttered noodles, parsley potatoes or steamed rice. Serve it with a good, characterful red wine such as Burgundy, Hermitage, Cote Rotie or Chateauneuf-du-Pape I don't know what some of those are.

Boeuf A La Mode

(Beef Braised in Red Wine) 

Step 1: Marinate

Delicious Aromatics

• An enameled, pyrex, or porcelain bowl just large enough to hold all the ingredients
• 1 cup each: thinly sliced carrots, onions, and celery stalks
• 2 halved cloves unpeeled garlic
• 1 Tbsp thyme
• 2 bay leaves
• 1/4 cup minced parsley
• 2 whole cloves
• A 5 lb piece of braising beef trimmed and tied for cooking
• 1 Tbsp salt
• 1/4 tsp pepper
• 5 cups young red wine with body
• 1/3 cup brandy
• 1/2 cup olive oil

Not enamel, pyrex or porcelain

Place half the vegetables, herbs, and spices in the bottom of the bowl. Rub the meat with salt and pepper and place it over the vegetables. Spread the rest of the vegetables and herbs over the meat. Pour on the wine, brandy, and olive oil. Cover and marinate for at least 6 hours (12 to 24 hours if the meat is refrigerated). Turn and baste the meat every hour or so. Half an hour before cooking, drain the meat on a rack. Just before browning, dry it thoroughly with paper towels. It will not brown if it is damp.

post marination

I halved the whole recipe because I do not know what Nathan and I would do with 5 lbs of roast beef

besides get a terrible case of the meat-sweats and pound on the table like the man vs food guy. For the beef I used a rump roast from the butcher (getting meat from a butcher rather than the grocery store has changed my life, and it really isn't any more expensive. For the wine I decided "young red wine with body" sounds like Zinfendel. I know absolutely nothing about wine, so please tell me if I'm terribly terribly wrong. Zinfendel was great in a stew I made when we were camping though, so I picked it. I did not have any celery on hand, so I tossed in a little celery seed from my spice cabinet. Nathan didn't think it would work, but I didn't notice anything weird (probably because there are enough other flavors going on). Oh, and the advice about drying your meat before browning it is the most important thing I have learned from reading and cooking with MtAoFC. It's really true; you get such a lovely perfect brown crust every time if you just pat your meat dry with a paper towel before cooking. Why did home-ec at Sequim Middle School not teach me this?

 Step 2: Brown

• A fireproof casserole or heavy roaster just large enough to hold the meat and braising ingredients
• 4-6 Tbsp rendered pork fat or cooking oil

 Add the fat to the casserole and place over moderately high heat. When fat is on the point of smoking, brown the meat on all sides. This takes about 15 minutes. Pour out the browning fat. *Recipe may be prepared in advance up to this point.

I used cooking oil because I save my rendered pork fat for really special occasions.* My fireproof casserole is an enameled dutch oven and it's basically my favorite cookware. I also have an enameled cast iron skillet with a lid, and I love them both a lot.

*I do not have any rendered pork fat. 

Step 3: Braise 

•  One or all of these to give body to the sauce: 1 or 2 cracked veal knuckles, 1 or 2 split calf's feet, 4-8 oz fresh pork rind.
• 4-6 cups beef stock, or canned beef bouillon

Pour in the wine marinade and boil it down rapidly until it has reduced by half. Then add the veal knuckles, calf's feet, and rind, and pour in enough stock or bouillon to come two thirds of the way up the beef. Bring to a simmer on top of the stove, skim, cover tightly, and set in the lower third of preheated oven. Regulate heat so liquid remains at a gentle simmer for 2 1/2 to 3 hours, and turn the meat several times during its braising. The beef is done when a sharp-pronged fork will pierce it easily.

This is how I know this recipe was written for 50s housewives. I am lucky enough during the summer when I'm not working to nip down to the butcher and pick up this or that, but even my butcher does not carry veal knuckles. I'm pretty sure she made that up, actually. Cows don't have toes; they have hooves. I hope my sauce will have enough body without the veal knuckles or calves feet. What is the difference between a veal knuckle and a calf foot? Ugh, this recipe. Anyhow, I wasn't quite sure if I was supposed to boil the marinating liquid down while the beef was in the pot or not, so I left it sitting on the cutting board since I was scared cooking it at that high of a temperature would make it tough. Also, I strained out the herbs and veggies from the marinade because I wasn't sure if they should be in the cooking liquid or not. I'm sure they wouldn't hurt. The strained liquid smelled amazing all meat juice and aromatic vegetable juice and seasonings and red wine melding together overnight. I am not ashamed to admit that I tasted it, and that I liked it.

I tasted this meat juice, and I liked it.

Step 4: The Sauce

• A hot serving platter
• 1 Tbsp arrowroot or cornstarch mixed with 2 Tbsp Madeira or port if needed
• Parsley Sprigs
• A warmed sauceboat

When the meat is tender, remove it to the platter. Discard trussing strings. Trim off any loose fat, and keep the meat warm while finishing the sauce (5-10 minutes). Skim the fat off the braising juices, and strain them through a sieve into a saucepan. Simmer for a minute or two, skimming, then boil rapidly until liquid is reduced to about 3 1/2 cups and is full of flavor. Taste carefully for seasoning. Sauce should be lightly thickened. If too thin, beat in the starch and wine mixture and simmer for 3 minutes. Decorate the meat with parsley. Pour a bit of sauce over the meat and send the rest to the table in a warmed sauceboat.

I did not use parsley sprigs because I don't have any. I also mixed the cornstarch to thicken the sauce with a little of the wine we were drinking with dinner. It was another bottle of the same zin I used to cook the roast. This sauce is heavenly. It isn't very thick, even with the cornstarch, but it's so rich and meaty and flavorful (though I could taste a distinct lack of veal knuckles). It was good drizzled over slices of the roast and even better with some lightly buttered egg noodles. In almost every meat "main course" recipe from MtAoFC, Julia Child recommends serving it with buttered egg noodles. This is, I imagine, because they all have delicious pan sauces that taste really good on buttered egg noodles. I don't really think of noodles when I think of French food, but I forget sometimes that MtAoFC is French home and dinner party food. Not haute cuisine.

Check out the gravy boat - thanks, Grandma!

Like a lot of the things I have made from this cookbook, I think it was delicious, but I don't think it's worth the time it takes to make it for an every day dinner. I'd make roast beef like this for a family (as in extended, not just me and Nathan and the hypothetical children) dinner or a special occasion because it is that good, but marinating overnight and monitoring the roast and making the sauce and side dishes (since you don't want to eat the marinade vegetables as a side; there is such thing as too much wine flavor) was a lot of effort compared to my usual crock pot roast. It was seriously, seriously good though.

Side note: for a side dish I made "Carottes a la Concierge" which is on page 480 of the book if you have it. It's carrots and onions sauteed in olive oil until tender with flour and beef broth added at the end, then finished with a whipped egg yolk and a few tablespoons of cream. It is delicious.

No really, it was good.