Provencale Beef Daube

IMBB this month, courtesy of Cucina Testa Rossa, was Regional French Cooking. I first tried to track down a regional dish from the Loire valley, as that was the first area of France I was ever obsessed with. When I turned up nothing that I particularily cared for, I moved on to Alsace, then Basque and finally settled on Provence. I actually love the food of Provence, but I associate it with lazy summer lunches with aioli, salade nicoise etc and it was freezing, almost snowing and Rob was making heavy hints about hunks of stewed meat. I love the internet though; after some searching, I came across a recipe for Beef Daube Provencale and the old BINGO sign flashed over my head. Now, in my opinion, one of the things that makes regional cuisine is working with what you have and I was lacking a few flavour elements plus the time called for in the recipe, so I created my own twist on it.

Of course, I had to serve it with noodles and I rounded out the plate with grilled romaine and Caper-Anchovy aioli.

Beef Daube Provencale

2lbs stewing meat (I purchased and dissected a blade "steak")
1 bottle of red wine
6 cloves
zest of 1 orange
6 bay leaves
Herbes de Provence (I used about a tablespoon)
250 g diced bacon
2 carrots, chopped
4 shallots, sliced
2 stalks celery, chopped
2 tbsp butter
2 tbsp flour

Early in the morning (or the day before), marinate the meat with wine, cloves, half the orange zest, bay leaves and herbs.
When you are ready to cook, drain the meat, saving the marinade. Sweat the bacon in a large pan, remove, add to the reserved marinade. Seaason the beef with salt & pepper and sear in the bacon fat, working in batches to prevent overcrowding. Remove from pan, set aside. Sweat the shallots, carrots and celery, add the marinade back to the pan and bring to the boil. Add the meat, cover and reduce heat to a gentle simmer. Leave it alone for 3 hrs.
Preheat oven to 250F.
Remove the meat from the pan, strain and defat the braising liquid. Using the same pan, make a roux with butter and flour. Add the liquid back to the pan, then the meat as well as the rest of the orange zest. Adjust seasoning as necessary and transfer to 250 oven until you are ready to consume.
Wine pairing was a Beringer Zinfandel, mostly because that was all we had on the rack and we are 3 days from payday here.
Tagged with: IMBB23 + French