Hey Home Cooked Chef’s, not sure about your part of the world but in my part it’s been quite the harvest so far this year…Both my mom and my mother-in-law have an over abundance of cherry tomatoes and have graciously allowed me to pick till my hearts content…
Now most of us…me included, love adding cherry tomatoes into our salads and to skewers, but today I decided to add a twist to a classic. Today I’m putting my spin on Beef Bourguignon.
Now with all my recipes here on HomeCookedChef, prep is always the keys to success! If you’re trying to cut carrots while your beef is in the pan searing…you may run the risk of burning something and I try and steer clear from adding the taste of burnt to my food…it’s definitely a quick way to ruin a dish!
So with that said…let’s get to it shall we.
I start off by getting everything I’m gonna use for the recipe and begin prepping. First I wash and dry my cherry tomatoes and place in a zip lock bag adding 1 finely diced clove of garlic, salt & pepper and about a table spoon of extra virgin olive oil.
It’s time for chop chop! Peel and cut 2 large carrots into slices. Don’t cut them too small cause they’ll just end up being mushy and dissolving into your mixture. Finley dice up one large onion and set aside. I would have also added in a cup of fresh mushrooms but didn’t have any on hand. Dam! Ah well..moving on! I also finely dice up 2 more cloves of garlic and set everything aside as it’s now time to slice up the bacon…
Oh that’s right Home Cooked Chefs…we’re adding bacon!
I chopped up about half a pound of bacon…I know it should go without saying but I’m gonna say it anyways…make sure you use a different cutting board then the one you’re using to cut and prep your veggies…Avoid cross contamination at all costs…the end result could be a shi**y situation…lol.
I have a bunch of glass cutting boards I use when I ‘m cutting meat and throw them into the dishwasher as soon as I’m done with them.
Next you’re going to place your stewing beef into a large size zip lock bag and throw in your spices. I use a table spoon of my spice mix here and add a splash of extra virgin olive oil then mix the meat in the bag and set aside…We’re about to start cooking!
That’s right, prep time is over and it’s now time to get this party started…grab your bag of cherry tomatoes and empty onto a tin foiled baking sheet and throw it in the oven for 10-12 minutes or so at 400°. I didn’t bother preheating…I just threw them in and turned on my oven. You may want to preheat…your choice.
While my tomatoes are roasting in the oven I cranked the heat on a pan and when it was screaming hot I threw in the bacon. Be careful here…that pans hot but there should be no splash as you shouldn’t add any oil. Don’t over cook the bacon here…you’re not adding bacon bits, you’re cooking the bacon down to get the grease to sear your beef.
Once your bacon has rendered down, using a slotted spoon remove you bacon and add it into your crock pot. You’re then going to place the pan back on your burner and add in your stewing beef. Remember to let the pan come back up to screaming heat but keep a close eye on it as the bacon grease can burn! Another thing to keep in mind is when you add the beef to the bacon grease be careful not to splash…that’ll burn like crazy and no one wants to spend hours in an emergency room for a bacon grease burn.
While that’s cooking down, you should be grabbing you’re roasted tomatoes out of the oven and add that to the crockpot.
You’re not looking to fully cook the beef here you’re simply adding in layers of flavor.
After about a 1 1/2 to 2 minutes of searing the beef you’re going to add in your chopped up veggies and stir it up for about another minute or so.
You’re then going to add in your wine and your beef stock and bring to a boil. Once it reaches a boil you’re going to add that to your crockpot and set your timer for 4-5 hours.
Once you hit the last hour mark on your crock pot you’re going to want to grab a couple of medium to large sized potatoes and wash um up! There are only four of us now with my two older boys off at University, so I throw in 4 potatoes plus two extra for leftover lunch the next day for a total of six.
Once their washed you want to pat them dry and throw them into a large sized ziplock bag adding salt & pepper and another splash of olive oil. Mix thoroughly and bake on a pan in the oven for about 40 minutes at 400°.
Remove potatoes from oven and place them one at a time on your cutting board. Make a series of cuts in the top of the potato all the way through. One lengthwise and a series of cross cuts. Then place one at a time in between two cookie pans. Make sure to add parchment paper on top and bottom of potato and press down squeezing flat.
Place squished potato onto plate removing top parchment paper and flipping it onto another plate. Remove other sheet of parchment paper and pour beef from crock pot mixture on top.
Enjoy!
[amd-zlrecipe-recipe:2]