Braised Beef in White Wine; a good day

A lot of people think of cooking beef in red wine or beer but not white wine.

White wine gives a lighter flavor to the dish – and is a nice change if you normally use red.

This dish is based on a French recipe from the Alsace region and calls for Riesling or Sylvaner.

I didn’t do this in the slow cooker. As long as I was browning the beef and having lots of vegetables, I decided the heavy casserole in the oven was best.

Besides…. I didn’t want to miss any of the wonderful smells or the chance to lift the lid and stir.

This requires an overnight marinade in the wine

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Braised Beef in White Wine

This is a hearty Alsatian stew traditionally served with simple boiled potatoes. It will serve 4 or 2 people for 2 meals. 
Have it the first night with potatoes, and toss the leftovers with past for the next.

  • Author: Katie
  • Prep Time: 30 minutes
  • Cook Time: 4 hours
  • Total Time: 4 hours 30 minutes
  • Yield: 4 servings 1x
  • Category: Stews

Ingredients

Scale
  • 24oz (750gr) beef, suitable for braising or stewing, cut into 1 1/2″ (4cm) cubes  
  • 4 medium carrots, sliced
  • 3 medium leeks, sliced
  • 4 cloves garlic, minced
  • 2 cups (15oz, 450gr) whole tomatoes, chopped, juices reserved
  • 4oz (250gr) mushrooms, trimmed, sliced
  • 2 1/2 cups (20oz, 600ml) white wine, Sylvaner or Riesling
  • 3 bay leaves
  • 1 bouquet garni
  • 1/4 tsp ground cloves
  • 1 tbs olive oil
  • 2 tbs cornstarch dissolved in 2 tbs water

Instructions

  • Combine the beef, leeks, carrots, garlic, herbs and spices in a deep bowl. 
  • Pour wine over and marinate for 24 hours, stirring once or twice. 
  • Remove beef and drain, reserving all marinade and vegetables.
  • Heat oil in a heavy casserole. 
  • Add beef, a few pieces at a time, and brown well. Remove to a plate. 
  • When all the beef is browned remove the casserole from heat and spoon the vegetables into the bottom, spreading evenly.  
  • Put the beef on top, pour the marinade, herbs and spice over the top.
  • Bake, 300F (160C) for 3 hours. 
  • Add tomatoes, mushrooms to the casserole and bake for another hour.
  • Remove from oven and remove bay leaves, bouquet garni
  • Heat to boiling over medium heat. 
  • Add cornstarch, stirring until thickened

Notes

You could substitute a Gewurztraminer or Pinot Blanc for the Riesling or Sylvaner. A Chardonnay would be too dry.
The prep time is 15 minutes to prepare for marinating and 15 minutes to brown the meat and get in the oven.

Nutrition

  • Serving Size:
  • Calories: 469
  • Sugar: 8.5 g
  • Sodium: 200.4 mg
  • Fat: 11 g
  • Saturated Fat: 3.6 g
  • Trans Fat: 0.4 g
  • Carbohydrates: 28.1 g
  • Fiber: 4.5 g
  • Protein: 40.8 g
  • Cholesterol: 112.2 mg

Keywords: beef stew, beef white wine

Braised Beef in White Wine

I had a good day today.

I have had lots of perfectly adequate days since the pandemic started, a few bad days, and a few better than normal days.

Today was good.

I found cranberries.

I didn’t expect to find them this year. Lock-downs, general disarray and a somewhat frosty relationship had me thinking maybe France wouldn’t be importing foods from the U.S.

They didn’t.

The cranberries came from Canada.

Today was the first time I ventured out to the small shops in almost a year. It’s not that I haven’t been allowed to. All of the food shops and supermarkets have been open. But I, personally, don’t think I need to go from shop to shop every week or even month when the recommendation is to keep outings to a minimum. I’ve been doing all of my food shopping twice a month using a combination of drive-through pick-up for the big stuff and the large supermarket for everything else.

With the holidays coming I decided it was time to do some fun shopping. We may not be going anywhere or seeing anyone but that doesn’t mean we can’t have our own holidays with all of our favorites things.

Many people still think that we expats crave things like peanut butter (I have a choice of many brands) or sour cream (crème fraîche?). For me it’s dark brown sugar. There is only 1 small shop in another village that carries it. She also has molasses so I’m good for Christmas cookies.

The best part of today’s shopping was, as is often the case, at Grand Frais. Not only did I find fresh cranberries, I found black-eyed peas and rose coco beans (cranberry beans) and lots of other beans that I didn’t buy; vialone nano and carnaroli risotto rice, and many other hard-to-find things that are on my list for next time.

It’s possible I’m starved for fun – and retail therapy.

Today helped.

12 thoughts on “Braised Beef in White Wine; a good day”

  1. This looks delicious! Perfect for a cool fall evening. I agree about the shopping. I haven’t been inside a grocery store months. I do miss going g to some of our smaller, local shops to just browse. Wishing you a Happy Thanksgiving.

  2. For me too…it was dark brown sugar for cookies and brownies…it was the only foody thing I could not find a substitute for in Morocco

    • Strange, isn’t it? The French just don’t seem to use it. It’s not even in French gourmet stores. The store I buy it in is an ‘English’ store – all British foods.

    • Cranberries are often tricky for us to get at this time of year – how ironic that the ones you got came from Canada. Generally, what we find come from the north-east coast of the USA. (Hmmm, are all the Canadian cranberries going to France??) And congratulations on getting cranberry beans! Those are my absolute favourites. Although… black eyed peas run in on a very close second.

      • Cranberry Beans are delicious…. And I considered myself very lucky to find cranberries this year – cranberry bread and ginger cranberry sauce coming up!
        The black-eyed peas were wonderful – the hubs favorite, so far

  3. I can’t seem to comment on the recipe anymore, but just wanted to let you know I’m making your Slow Cooker Honey Soy Chicken today, recipe from 2017. I decided to drag out my slow cooker which I have used about 5 times total. I want to be around to make sure it is still working right, so lockdown is a good time to “be around.” I’ll tell you how it turns out!

    • Comments on older posts are disabled – too much spam, sigh. Lockdown does lend itself to dragging out the old stuff, doesn’t it?
      I hope the chicken turned out well. I use my slow cooker a lot in the winter – so I can sit in front of the fire longer.

  4. To add to bcinfrance, I often have a hard time commenting now as well.

    This recipe is exactly the kind of comfort food we’d love and I too would do it in the oven. I usually do anyway rather than the slow cooker if the recipe calls for browning the meat first. Can’t see dirtying up extra pans.

    I usually buy cranberries when I see them and then just toss them in the freezer. They’ll keep about a year or so and it’s so nice to have ‘fresh’ cranberries rather than canned. Our local big store was really well stocked last Monday when I went. I can imagine what it looked like by Wednesday when our newest ‘lockdown’ started. But the only thing I couldn’t find anywhere it Coke Zero. No, I don’t drink it. It’s hub’s drink of choice. I haven’t had pop in a couple years now. But there is no pop to be found. Any brand, any kind. Must be the new toilet paper…

    • I keep trying to find the answer to the comments problem, but nothing is clear. As it works for me with no issues it’s not something I can test easily.
      When you freeze the cranberries do you go through them first to get rid of the bad ones? Here I usually have to toss about 5% of them before I use them.
      Plus I primarily want them for quick bread, so I’m not sure if frozen would work. We gave up our Coca Lights a few years ago. I’m just a water drinker now – and coffee, of course.

      • I don’t go through them unless I can see bad ones through the bag, but you could and just put them in a plastic bag after and then stick them in the freezer. I’ve found that they have the same ‘water’ content frozen or not so just toss them in the batter when I’m making scones. It doesn’t seem to make a difference and they defrost so quickly.

        Sometimes, I don’t see the comment box. Sometimes, I see it, but it’s just the box and no email/name/website area and nothing I do makes that show up. I turned off all of my ad blockers and such quite awhile ago but it didn’t make any difference. There’s still a lot of things I don’t see. Maybe it’s Google’s ad stuff that’s stopping it for some reason since I’m on Chrome though I admit, I haven’t tried it on any other browser. I don’t know how many plugins you’re using, but I found that often in Wordpress, all it takes is one that doesn’t play well with the others and it will mess up all of them. :/

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