Beef Daube Provençal

Sounds fancy, doesn’t it? And a little complicated, too. That, combined with its French origin, put this dish towards the top of my list.

I discovered this recipe on the Cooking Light website while searching for crock pot recipes. This was listed as one of the readers’ favorites, and after enjoying it, I can certainly see why.

The Recipe

Beef Daube Provençal , from Cooking Light

Scare Factor

Okay, from now on, I’m not calling it the Scare Factor anymore. I’m sick of feeling like a wimp. From now on, it’s the…

Apprehension Meter

This new device measures how apprehensive I am to try a given recipe. For this recipe, the meter reads between medium and high.

I had never used a slow cooker before. They seem incredibly easy—that’s kind of their “thing,” isn’t it?—but still, it was new to me. But what was slightly more intimidating were some of the ingredients. Two pounds of boneless chuck roast. Oh, goodness.

Seasoned home cooks are probably rolling their eyes right now, and…please, go ahead. I kind of deserve it. I’m 24. I should not be afraid of a little raw red meat.

Other ingredients listed on the recipe were fresh rosemary and fresh thyme. Key word: fresh. Fresh = buying fresh, expensive herbs, using 1 teaspoon for a recipe, then letting the rest go bad.

1 bay leaf. Ugh. I’m finally going to have to buy some bay leaves. Bay leaves aren’t scary, it’s just that at the end of my trip to the grocery store, when my basket is already so heavy it’s cutting off circulation to the lower part of my arm and I’m already over budget, an $8 jar of bay leaves seems impossible.

Here’s How it Really Went

Very, very well, actually. This dish was not only one of the tastiest things I’ve ever made, it was also fun. Chopping the garlic and browning the meat, pouring red wine into a pot in thick glugs, sprinkling herbs into a bubbling stew… you just feel like a real chef.

But it wasn’t without its complications, either. For starters, the garlic.

12 little garlic cloves, still all cozy in their peels

I was confident, having recently learned how to peel and chop fresh garlic, but once all of my little cloves were splayed out on my cutting board, I realized that the recipe called for “crushed” garlic. What? How do you “crush” garlic? Does this mean turn it into some kind of paste? I was hungry and didn’t feel like researching, so I just chopped my garlic. It turned out okay, but I think that when I make this again (and I certainly will), I’ll put more effort into crushing the garlic. It seems like that would infuse the garlic flavor into the broth a little more.

Another bump in the road: While chopping the onion, I accidentally chopped my middle finger, too. My first kitchen injury! A little soap, water, and a Batman Band-Aid and I was as good as new.

Chopped onion, carrots, and garlic, basking in the winter sun

I also have to mention that I regret not using more carrots. I used the amount the recipe called for (2 cups), but the carrots turned out to be one of my favorite parts of the stew in the end. They were so flavorful and tender, and next time I’ll be using at least 3-4 cups.

Oh dear God

Then it was onto the meat. I saved this prep step for last, simply because I was dreading touching it. Not to mention, if there’s one thing I hate about cooking, it’s trying to cut raw meat. I ended up cutting the roast into about 1-2 inch cubes, and probably ended up wasting a lot of it, because I didn’t really care to fight for the stuff that was adhered to the thick, solid strips of fat.

Sizzling away, almost ready to be flipped

When it came to browning the meat in the Dutch oven (or just a regular pot, like I used), I remembered a little tip I’d heard from Lucinda Scala Quinn of Martha Stewart Living fame: when browning meat, never crowd the pan. So, I didn’t. And I felt like a genius. I browned the meat in three batches, using my new tongs to flip the meat from side to side in the pot. (Note: if you are a novice cook and are stocking your kitchen for the first time, tongs are a must. I went without them for so long, and now that I have a pair, I wonder how I lived without them.)

Yum! Preparing for the crock pot

The part where it got really fun was adding all of the ingredients back into the pot and dousing them with red wine and beef broth. The smell was just incredible.

I know the recipe called for fresh herbs, and I had every intention of buying fresh rosemary and thyme, but frankly, it was the same thing that happens with the bay leaves (except this time I really did buy bay leaves). I was ready to check out at the grocery store, and adding two more $4 items seemed like too much for my basket and my wallet.

So I went with dried herbs, which I think worked perfectly fine.

If you make this recipe- just leave. Just leave for five hours, or you'll be forced to count down like I did.

One of the biggest challenges of this recipe? Waiting. The recipe gives you the option to bake the stew in the oven, but I don’t have a “stove-to-oven” pot that’s big enough, so I opted to torture myself by letting it simmer and cook for five hours while I eagerly checked off the hours, salivating.

Once five long hours had passed, I cooked a batch of egg noodles (per the serving suggestion on the recipe), upon which I served the stew.

And… oh my gosh. It was delicious. So good. I could hardly believe that I made it.

This recipe is really a must for other novice cooks. If you’re nervous about cooking meat, this recipe is a great intro, because when meat cooks for five hours there’s really no way it can not be done (which is always my main fear). And since it’s simmering away in a winey broth, it can’t dry out. In fact, it gets so incredibly tender, it just falls apart in your mouth.

A great, fairly easy, fairly painless, very delicious, and very fun meal to make on a cold winter weekend.

Fin.