No cookbook. Just a couple recipes. If you like beef burgundy, then beef carbonnade is the same idea with beer. Posts #76 and #79 in this thread have a couple recipes for carbonnade that I posted. I made the very simple version last night. For flavor-to-effort it’s wonderful. I’ll recap:
2 pounds stewing/braising beef cut into 1-inch or so cubes (preferably something like boneless short ribs or chuck, but I used top round last night as it was on sale.)
1 pound onions, cut into half-moons.
1 tablespoon (or even more) of butter
3 or 4 bay leaves
thyme, salt, pepper to taste (I used about a teaspoon of dried thyme)
two or three slices of bread
mustard (preferably something like Dijon or a grainy, sharp mustard.)
12 oz of good Belgian beer, preferably a dubbel, sour, or old brown ale. If you don’t want to break the bank, look for New Belgium’s abbey ale. Also, Leffe Brown is good.
I usually start by browning my beef separately. Then, in a Dutch oven, I melt butter, fry up the onions with a sprinkle of salt over medium-high heat until they turn golden (about 8-10 minutes), stirring often so they don’t burn. Then, add thyme, pepper, and your already browned beef. Pour over the beer. Some recipes say to cover the beef in beer–that’s not necessary. One bottle is fine for about two pounds of beef. Plenty of water will render out of the onions as it cooks, and you’ll get more concentrated flavor this way with less liquid, anyway. Add bay leaves. Spread mustard on a couple slices of bread (or gingersnaps) and place, mustard side down, on top of the stew. Cover. Cook over low heat or in a 325F oven until meat is fork tender, about 2-3 hours. Mix thoroughly to combine the bread and broth and thicken the stew. Adjust for salt. You might even want to consider adding a touch of vinegar if the mustard and beer didn’t give it enough of a little sour kick. I’m just liberal with my mustard and it works out fine without adjustment. Serve over oven fries/pommes frites/potatoes or broad egg noodles.
Enjoy! For a recipe so simple, it packs a punch.
You can make this using a mild stout like Guinness, but then it’ll be more like a beef & Guinness stew rather than carbonnade flamande. Cook’s Illustrated recommends Newcastle Brown Ale, which is a bit of an odd choice to me, as that’s a fairly bland beer, and you need a bit of sweet & sour & spice, in my opinion. I don’t really trust CI with their interpretations of ethnic recipes.
You can also follow the same basic procedure, but substitute braising pork (like shoulder) for the beef, and use a decent dry to medium-dry hard cider for the beer and you have a delicious pork & cider stew.
