What am I doing wrong?

[JohnStuartMills]

I made a boeuf bourguignone (sp?) according to recipe instructions. I only had a smallish casserole dish so the meat was packed in. The meat was still not falling apart tender after 2 1/2 hours. Is this cos the meat was fairly compacted or am I a plain cook only and should I give up attempting new recipes? Don't know why but this had made me feel inept.

Try cooking it for longer next time.

I'm guessing that squashing the meat in made it harder for the heat to circulate properly??

A new recipe is always worth trying .

Try cooking it with beef shin or cheeks and for 3-4 hours at 150/160. These are melt in the mouth cuts and, imo, a thousand times tastier than bog standard stewing/braising steak. Tis 2am for me, but will post the recipe I use in the morning for you if you want. In fact will post a couple of similar and equally delicious beef stew-y recipes.

Thank you for replying. Piprabbit, you might not say that if you had to eat my endeavours.

Rock, I would very much appreciate some other recipes. I hanker after them. When my son came into the kitchen after school, he asked what that delicious smell was. I then served him the rubber balls that was my boeuf bourguignon. It really is the hope of memories of halcyon days with mother producing ambrosia being dashed.

I've also invited some people to lunch in a couple of weeks and was hoping to produce something with sense of occasion. Maybe I'll stick with salmon and hollandaise sauce.

Will do that today, got to do dull stuff like get up just now!! And this bloody lap top is currently preventing me from doing so...! Any other meats/fish you'd like me to include? Can definitely come up with some 'people for lunch' suggestions if you like.

The key thing to get your beef really soft and tender is to cook it at a very low heat for as long as possible. I'll also try to suggest some recipes for you if you give us a bit of a steer on what you're after.

Here are some for starters...

This Jamie Oliver one is seriously delicious. The only thing I don't do is put the cinnamon stick in it as I think it's even nicer without. Put in oven. Leave it. I let it cook for a good 4½ - 5 hours and it tastes even better the next day. Versatile too - great with mash, rice, spaghetti, tagliatelli

I follow Delia's Boeuf Bourguignon recipe, but I will use beef cheek or shin (as I mentioned above) and cook for 3½ hours. Follow the recipe for the rest of it though.

To be honest, once you've mastered the cut of meat that YOU like any blend of these stews and your own throw it in the pot ones will be good. So long as you've got your onion/celery/carrot mirepoix base with your chosen cut of meat then flavours to suit your palate will give you a good stew.

With regard to wine - only put it in if you would happily drink it!

And as I said earlier, if you can give some meat/fish suggestions then I have got some super 'lunch party' dishes I can put up for you.

But anyway, I hope the above two are a help to you.

wine sentence doesn't read clearly... What I mean is, if you would happily drink the wine used in the stew, great. If it's rank vinegary cheap shite, your food will be rank vinegary and cheap shite tasting

Boeuf B - my staple winter supper dish!

I would use a bigger dish;if you haven't got a bigger one with a lid still use the bigger dish and put double foil over the top. Then you need to cook it long and slow on a lower than normal heat, say 160/150, would say it needs at least 3.5 hours. Tend to use a cheaper cut of meat too, makes it more melty and sofy iykwim and completely agree that if you wouldn't drink it don't cook with it, although I would use the end of the bottle opened a couple of days before without any qualms at all!

nometime do you ACTUALLY have wine left in bottles in your house then

Thank you everybody. You make me feel quite inadequate as you all seem to know your hens from your chickens! One thing I notice is that you all recommend WELL over the time stated in the recipe to get nice tender meat. In some cases nearly double. Why the heck do they state much lower cooking times. It's not me, it's the RECIPE. Even Delia there is saying just 2hrs.

I will try some of those stews again, with longer cooking times. I wonder if the slow cooker would ruin them giving a same mushy taste. The 300ml of wine would also have to be reduced.

Thanks again.