french-cuisine
In Mastering the Art of French Cooking, for the beef bourguignon recipe, there is an instruction towards the end I'm not sure if I'm understanding.
After the meat is cooked, you pass the sauce thru a sieve and reduce it. She then says
Wash out the casserole and return the beef and bacon to it.
Does that mean that the small onion and carrot that cooked along with the meat are to be discarded? It was kind of a hassle to take them out. Should they be cut large so as to make that easier?
The simplest way to see the difference is to compare the cut diagrams:
British
French
Images courtesy of Wikipedia - Cut of Beef
The main difference is in how certain areas are sub-divided. We can see that faux-filet is part of the British sirloin, and entrecote is partly forerib and partly sirloin.
If the recipe said to simmer them slowly with the meat, you might be pleasantly surprised as they could blend in with the other flavors. (Or not, but it might be worth a try with a smaller amount.)
But in the given recipe, a not-so-small amount gets added shortly before the end of the cooking time, which seems intended to keep the original olive flavor (a bit like adding fresh herbs at the end). The flavor of the stew has developed without the olives, a few minutes won’t make a real difference. If you dislike olives on pizza, salad or as appetizer - leave them out.
Best Answer
I agree the original instructions are unclear, but "return the beef and bacon to [the casserole]" implies that the "beef and bacon" includes the other ingredients cooked in the casserole - the onion and carrot. Sometimes recipes refer to mixtures by their predominant ingredients, and this recipe seems to do this, albeit a little vaguely.
Looking at similar techniques, while onion could be used to impart flavor and then removed, there isn't really a good reason to add carrot if it will be removed later. Unless browned, carrots don't tend to add much flavor after removed.
The instructions also say, "Pour the contents of the casserole into a sieve set over a saucepan." This would include the sliced carrots and onions, and sliced vegetables should be large enough so as to not pass through a sieve, so it shouldn't be much of a hassle to separate them from the sauce.
Here is where I found the recipe online.