Butter Bourbon Beef

If you just have to have beef, here's an incredibly rich beef stew that has buttery depth and umami tones running throughout.
2 lb beef chuck, in 1-inch cubes
1/4 lb bacon, diced
1 large onion, diced
1 tsp herbes de Provence
1 12-oz bottle beer (I used an IPA)
2 Tbsp molasses
1/4 cup English mustard
1 8-oz can tomato sauce
12 oz fresh mushrooms, thickly sliced
3 Tbsp butter, divided
1 lb baby Parisienne carrots (frozen), or baby carrots, halved
1 cup Bourbon


Preheat oven to 375F. Heat a tablespoon canola oil in a Dutch oven or large pot. Sweat the bacon in the oil until it begins to brown and render a bit, about 5 minutes. Transfer to a large bowl. Brown the beef in the same pot over medium-high in batches.

Don’t overcrowd, so there is plenty of airspace between the cubes, to enhance the browning. Salt and pepper only a bit, keeping in mind the rich layers of flavor to come.  Transfer beef to the bowl with the bacon.

Next, add the onions to the pot and cook them down for about 10 minutes. Add the herbs and cook another 2 minutes. Add the beer, molasses, mustard and tomato sauce and return the beef to the pot. Bring to a boil, cover, and place in oven. Bake for an hour.

Take a bike ride or go work out for 45 minutes. Then come back and sauté the mushrooms in a large pan over very high heat, with one tablespoon canola oil and 1 tablespoon of the butter. Let them release any water they want, and brown them up a bit. Transfer the mushrooms to the Dutch Oven, stir the stew gently, cover and put back in the oven.

Now sauté the carrots with the remaining butter, in the same pan you cooked the mushrooms.

Brown them up for about 10 minutes, and then transfer them to the stew.

Add the Bourbon and stir gently. Cook another 20 minutes, until the beef is completely tender and the stew is very aromatic. Adjust the liquid level to your taste with a bit of water if necessary.

Serve over noodles. Quickly-blanched broccoli would accompany this very well, and balance the rich stew’s flavor nicely.

Serves 6-8.

Cook's Note:  I used frozen baby Parisienne carrots from Trader Joe's and I tossed them into the sauté pan frozen.

They turned out nice and sweet.  I think they are great to have on hand.  If you have fresh baby carrots, you could certainly use them as well.  Just cut them in half in some decorative way, and sauté them in the same way.

I also used mixed white button mushrooms and fresh shiitake mushrooms, which have such a rich flavor.

I think shiitake stand up to the other rich flavors in this dish very well.  I find them in a local international farmer's market.

Finally, I used a good English mustard I bought at Waitrose, a fine food market in the UK.

You can use Coleman's or a Dijon - I'm sure most any mustard would work well.