Tomatillo & Roasted Yellow Chili Beef Bourguignon

Lending a Southwestern flare to a Boeuf Bourgignon might have sounded anathema to Julia Child, but I suspect her good friend Jacques Pepin would quite like the combination.  A Boeuf Bourgignon is the classic combination of beef, red wine, pearl onions and mushrooms.  Here, I add in flavors of the southwest including fennel and cumin seeds, with a great salsa, and some green chiles.  Finished in the oven, it has the richness of a Bourgignon, but with a sharper edge to freshen it up.  Aw, go ahead and say it, Julia: ¡Que Aproveche!
2 lb chuck beef, cut into 24 1-inch cubes
1 tsp fennel seeds
1 tsp cumin seeds
1/8 lb apple smoked bacon, finely diced
1 onion, finely diced
3 cloves garlic, minced
2 tsp dried oregano
2 cups beef broth
2 cups red wine
1 jar Trader Joe's Tomatillo & Roasted Yellow Chili Salsa, 10 oz, or other favorite salsa
1 lb pearl onion, peeled (I used Trader Joe’s frozen)
10 oz button mushrooms, thickly sliced
1 4-oz can diced green chiles

Preheat oven to 375F. Brown the beef in a bit of olive oil in two batches in a Dutch Oven.

Set beef aside in a bowl when it is ready. Place fennel seeds, cumin seeds, bacon and onions in same pot and cook until bacon starts to color and firm up a bit, and onions soften and caramelize a bit. This should take about 10 minutes.

Add the wine, broth and salsa to the pot and return the beef to the pot. Bring to boil, stir and cover. Place in oven for an hour.

Meanwhile sauté the mushrooms in a bit of butter and olive oil until they release any liquid and they brown up nicely.

Set aside. In same pan, sauté the pearl onions until they color nicely, about 10-12 minutes. Set aside with the mushrooms.

After the stew had baked an hour, add the onions, mushrooms and green chiles to the Dutch Oven. Stir and cook another hour, until the meat is fork tender. Stir every once in a while to check stew, and remove from oven when done. Serve with cilantro.

Serves 6.

Cook’s note: This stew’s flavor will depend on the beef stock and the salsa you use. I used home-made stock, but there are many good ones out there to buy. Just watch the sodium level. There are hundreds of great salsas out there as well, so you don't have to worry about that!  In this version I used Trader Joe's Tomatillo and Roasted Yellow Chili Salsa, but I am sure many others would work well too.

I am done with spending the time of peeling fresh pearl onions. I know they are better, but honestly, if you brown the frozen ones well, you will do fine. This is your choice.