Le ‘keto beef bourguignon,’ n’est ce pas?
This traditional French cuisine is an excellent option for the meal that you will serve your significant other on Valentine’s Day this coming February.
Use a dry Burgundy wine, which imparts a fantastic and profound flavor to the meat after it has been slowly cooked. It makes the beef bourguignon melt in your mouth tender, and doesn’t alter the keto kosherness of the dish.
It is really easy to prepare, and even a beginner chef should have no trouble preparing it.
In order to cut down on the total number of carbohydrates in this beef bourguignon recipe, We omitted the pearl onions.
Although it does not contribute a significant amount of carbohydrates, we have labeled this ingredient as “optional” because we used a carrot in it.
France’s national dish
If someone asked you to name a French food, you might say coq au vin, escargots, or even foie gras.
But if we’re talking about the whole country, beef bourguignon is the way to go.
This hearty stew has been around for a long time and is known for being both the best comfort food and a culinary experience.
Read on to find out more about the interesting history of this well-known recipe and what you need to put in your slow cooker.
The best French food
In a survey done in 2017, most French people said that beef bourguignon was the dish that best represented their country.
With 23% of the votes, the meat stew came in first place, beating out old favorites like blanquette de veau and steak frites, which only got 11% and 10% of the votes, respectively.
Beef bourguignon is a great example of the best of French cuisine, just like fish and chips or paella are great examples of their countries’ cuisines.
Julia Child doesn’t call it “one of the most delicious beef meals ever made” without good reason.
Also, a lot of cooks and people who gourmandize agree that this beef stew made by slow cooking is the best one out there.
In the beginning . . .
Beef bourguignon comes from the Middle Ages, when it was used to soften tough meat and feed a lot of people.
But the dish didn’t show up in French restaurants until 1903, when the “king of chefs,” Auguste Escoffier, published a list of the ingredients and instructions for how to make it.
Right away, the dish called boeuf bourguignon became a must-have on the menus of high-end restaurants in New York, Paris, and London.
After that, it was mostly used in French kitchens until the famous American chef Julia Child put it in her 1961 book “Mastering the Art of French Cooking,” which went on to be a big seller.
Because she used beef cubes instead of a single piece of beef, the dish became popular in kitchens all over the world. Thanks to her innovation, it is still a popular dish around the world.
How the beef bourguignon dish is put together
The meal comes from Burgundy and uses red wine and beef from the Charolais breed, which are two of the region’s most famous products.
The white cattle, which come from the Charolles region of southern Burgundy and are known for being calm and having juicy meat, are the perfect match for the strong red wine made in this area.
Some chefs, like those who learned from Escoffier, like to use the whole piece of beef, while others like to cut it into smaller pieces.
Anthony Bourdain, who is also known as a French food icon, liked paleron, which is also called the feather blade cut. Top chef Michel Roux Jr., on the other hand, likes to braise beef, chuck, or cheek.
But no matter what cut of beef you choose, every chef will tell you that it must be marbled so that the fat can add flavor and texture to the dish.
If you want a dish that can really be called beef bourguignon, you can use any cut of beef you like, but you must use a strong Burgundy as the red wine.
True purists prefer Pinot Noir and Gamay, but all of the chefs I talked to agreed that the most important thing is that the wine has as much body as possible.
It’s possible
It’s possible to make any rich, thick stew and keep it keto kosher if you’re willing to substitute ingredients.
For starchy potatoes use carrots. For a heavy wine that may be loaded with unintentional carbs, substitute a light white wine, or even red wine vinegar. Unless your guests channel Julia Child they’re not going to notice the difference.
Go easy on the salt but heavy on the pepper. And make it fresh ground pepper, always. This adds a very earthy flavor to any stew or soup that tricks the taste buds into thinking they’re savoring a rich thick gravy.
