Beef Stew With White Wine?
A red wine daube is hearty stuff, usually beef, lamb or veal braised with lardons (bacon or salt pork) and possibly pearl onions and mushrooms as well. In fact, it’s probably too hearty for warm weather.
But there’s a wonderful daube in Patricia Wells’ latest book, “Patricia Wells at Home in Provence” (Scribners, 1996; $40), made with white wine with a dollop of mustard. It’s amazing how the white wine lightens up the dish, in a way allowing the taste of the beef to come through more clearly. The sauce has a little tomato in it to give it a good color and add some sweetness. It also has lots of herbs--parsley, thyme, tarragon (which can be omitted) and fresh bay leaves, which are becoming more available in some supermarkets and farmers markets.
My husband, who cooks the daube in our house, almost always prefers to make it with beef. A number of inexpensive cuts of beef are ideal for daube. You could use chuck, rump, brisket or even beef neck. One of the best is a 7-bone chuck roast.
Recently, we found a 7-bone chuck, ordinarily more than $2 a pound, for an astonishing 77 cents a pound when we used our frequent shopper club card. The last time I saw chuck at 77 cents was when I was still in college, cooking my first boeuf a la bourguignonne from Julia Child’s “Mastering the Art of French Cooking.” How could we resist?
It’s important to trim the beef well. Wells’ recipe says to cut it into 3-inch cubes, but these seem too large to me; you could easily end up with only five or six pieces for a single recipe. One and a half to 2 inches on a side seems more like it.
Be sure to reserve the bones for braising with the meat to build in every bit of flavor. As I learned from Josephine Araldo, a Breton who was once Isadora Duncan’s chef, French housewives use every last thing. Nothing goes to waste.
When browning the meat, be sure not to crowd the pan. Do it in batches, if necessary, or in two skillets. And at the end, when the beef is tender, taste the braising liquid. You might want to remove the meat with a slotted spoon and reduce the sauce to concentrate its flavor and thicken it slightly.
The great thing about a daube, by the way, is that you can cook it ahead. In fact you should, because it will taste even better. You can freeze any leftovers, and they won’t suffer a bit.
For the first course on that night of 77-cents-a-pound daube, I made a simple frisee salad with applewood-smoked bacon and croutons which I fried in a little olive oil. Reserve 3 or 4 tablespoons of bacon fat, heat it and make a vinaigrette with a little red wine vinegar and olive oil to taste.
We accompanied it with mashed potatoes; daube loves mashed potatoes. I like to stir in finely chopped parsley to give the potatoes a jolt of green. Use the Italian flat-leaf variety, if possible. And don’t even think about cheating with a food processor. That large chef’s knife languishing in a drawer will do a fine job in half the time. I think, too, chilled green beans emphasize, gently, that this is not winter’s sturdy daube but a lighter variation that’s perfect for late spring.
I like the idea of drinking a white wine with a daube cooked in white wine. Wells suggests a Chave Hermitage Blanc, which gave me the excuse to pull the cork on one of my favorite wines, one I rarely have the opportunity to drink. At $65, the Chave is expensive, and because this wine from the 1995 vintage is so coveted, it’s relatively hard to find. Jean-Louis Chave is one of the Rhone’s greatest winemakers, and this Hermitage Blanc has a voluptuous texture, an extravagant, full-bodied flavor with notes of honey and mineral and a long finely spun finish.
But I also wanted to try an old-vine Roussanne from the Vacheron family’s Le Clos du Caillou. Though classified as a Co^tes du Rho^ne, it comes from vines averaging 65 years old on an estate just outside the boundaries of Cha^teauneuf du Pape. It’s made from the same grapes and in the same style as a Cha^teauneuf du Pape Blanc. It’s a stunner, so highly perfumed (white peaches, apricots, honey) that you want to put your nose in the glass and keep it there. What’s more, it costs half as much as most Cha^teauneuf du Pape Blancs and about a quarter the price of the Chave.
Both of these wines are wonderful matches in their way. These white Rhones seem to bring out all the nuances of the sauce, and the daube is delicate enough to let the wines show every layer of flavor. After you try them together, you’ll understand why white wine is not at all out of the question with beef. Especially when it’s one of these fleshy, complex whites.
Nothing could be simpler than beef stewed in white wine, yet during the cooking, the inexpensive cut of meat is transformed into something that transcends the category of stew. That’s why so many cooks are passionate devotees of French country cooking.
The Wines
1997 Le Clos du Caillou “Les Roches Rondes” Vieilles Vignes, Co^tes du Rho^ne Blanc, from Vacheron-Pouizon. About $18.
1995, J.L. Chave Hermitage Blanc. About $65.
The Menu
Frisee Salad with Lardons and Croutons
Beef Daube with Mustard, Herbs and White Wine
Mashed Potatoes with Parsley
Chilled Green Beans
CHILLED GREEN BEANS
1 pound green beans
1 clove garlic
2 to 3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
Grated zest of 1 lemon
Trim ends of beans and steam beans until they’re tender but retain some crunch, about 4 minutes. Drain, then immediately plunge into bowl of ice water to stop cooking and maintain color. Drain and pat dry.
Peel garlic and smash with knife. Heat olive oil and garlic in skillet over medium-low heat until garlic begins to color, 1 to 2 minutes. Remove garlic.
Pour hot oil over beans, tossing to coat. Add lemon zest, reserving some to sprinkle over top, and toss. Sprinkle reserved zest over top. Chill at least 30 minutes until ready to serve.
4 servings. Each serving:
96 calories; 7 mg sodium; 0 cholesterol; 7 grams fat; 9 grams carbohydrates; 2 grams protein; 1.26 grams fiber.
BEEF DAUBE WITH MUSTARD, HERBS AND WHITE WINE
This recipe was adapted From Patricia Wells’ “At Home in Provence” (Scribner, 1996, $40). For the bouquet garni, I tied together several sprigs of flat-leaf parsley, thyme, tarragon and fresh bay leaves with household twine. Serve the daube with mashed potatoes or wide egg noodles.
3 onions, peeled
3 tablespoons olive oil
2 pounds boneless braising beef (such as beef shoulder, chuck, blade, neck, rump or brisket), cut into 1 1/2- to 2-inch cubes
Sea salt
Freshly ground black pepper
1 bottle dry white wine
2 tablespoons Dijon mustard
1 (14 1/2-ounce) can peeled plum tomatoes in juice
3 cloves garlic, peeled and halved
Bouquet garni
Halve onions lengthwise. Place cut side down and slice crosswise into very thin slices. Set aside.
Heat oil over medium heat in large covered casserole. When oil is hot, brown beef on all sides in batches, carefully regulating heat to avoid scorching meat. Do not crowd pan and be patient; good browning is essential to retaining flavor of beef. When browned, remove with tongs (do not pierce with fork) and transfer to platter. Immediately season generously with salt and pepper.
Pour off excess fat leaving only thin film of fat in casserole. Pour wine over entire surface of casserole and scrape up browned bits from bottom. Gently simmer wine, uncovered, over medium heat until reduced by about 2/3, about 10 minutes. Whisk in mustard.
Return beef and any juices to casserole. Add tomatoes and juice, sliced onions, garlic and bouquet garni. Cover and simmer over low heat until beef is fork-tender, 2 to 3 hours. Remove and discard bouquet garni. With slotted spoon, transfer beef, onions and tomatoes to platter.
Boil sauce over high heat until reduced by about 1/3, about 10 minutes. Return beef, onions and tomatoes to sauce and reheat gently over low heat. Serve in warmed shallow soup bowls. (Daube can be prepared 1 to 2 days in advance. Allow to cool thoroughly at room temperature, then cover and refrigerate. To serve, scrape off and discard fat that has solidified on surface. Gently reheat over medium-low heat.)
4 servings. Each serving:
569 calories; 581 mg sodium; 109 mg cholesterol; 25 grams fat; 18 grams carbohydrates; 37 grams protein; 1.22 grams fiber.