30 October 2013

Meatballs Burgundy

Autrement dit, boulettes de viande à la bourguignonne. I made these again a couple of days ago. The first time I made meatballs in beef burgundy sauce was back in 2009 (time flies). Here's a link to that post. We like to buy a cut of beef and grind the meat ourselves, so we know exactly what we are eating. This time it was a roast cut from the basse côte, which I think would be called chuck roast in the U.S.

I won't go into the details of the recipe here. I just got up and the day has dawned. We have a much earlier sunrise now that the clocks have been set back to winter (standard) time. Callie will be wanting her walk in a few minutes. One more cup of tea, and I'll be outdoors.


Back to the meatballs. I think this is an excellent way to make bœuf bourguignon. It takes a few minutes to make the meatballs, but they don't need a lot of ingredients other than ground beef, salt, pepper, breadcrumbs, and eggs. The flavor is in the sauce. Actually, I used wheat semolina (100 grams for 800 grams of meat) instead of breadcrumbs in the meatball mixture this time, and that worked really well.


I like to brown the meatballs in the oven instead of frying them in a pan on top of the stove. It's a lot less mess. Arrange the meatballs in a baking pan, on a silicone cooking pad or parchment paper, and put the oven on high — 220ºC / 425ºF. Leave them in the oven just long enough to brown, and then put them in the red wine sauce to cook through.


I had some beef burgundy sauce in the freezer, left over from a few weeks ago. Meatballs don't have to cook nearly as long as stew beef, and there's no danger of them being tough or stringy. A few minutes before you're ready to serve them, add a dozen or more little mushrooms to the pan. Serve with pasta, rice, or boiled potatoes, followed by a big green salad.

5 comments:

  1. Your oven method is so much better than pan fry for this stage...
    thanks for posting it...
    would never have entered this brain otherwise...

    We normally use the chair from our village butcher... lighter in texture [and colour]... not tried using real meat [laziness really]... will do so now.

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  2. Hi Tim, I think by chair you must mean pork. This recipe needs beef.

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  3. Yes Ken...
    but I was just thinking about cooking meatballs less messily...
    not actual bœuf bourguignon...
    we do meatballs in tomato sauce [homemade] rather a lot...
    and for grinding your own meat...
    do you use a food processor or a mincer?

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  4. We use a meat grinder attachment on our Kitchenaid stand mixer. You can of course just buy ground (minced) beef at the supermarché.

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  5. Ah... en Anglais... a mincer!
    I have used the food processor before now... the mincer is in a box in the barn... somewhere.
    It gives a nice texture to thye resulting "mince"...

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