Boeuf Bourguignon and gluten free scones

I’m not suggesting that Bœuf Bourguignon (which spell check wants to spell as UFO Bourgeois) should be garnished with or eaten with or served with gluten-free scones, it’s just that we are cooking both those things today. I could actually imagine a beef cobbler with a bourguignon topping, maybe next time we make it to eat at home I will suggest that.

We have a friend who has been temporarily immobilised by a hip operation, and we suggested we cook a meal and take it round to her and her husband to share together; she will provide the wine, we will bring the meal! Before that i have my creative writing class, and as one of the group can only eat gluten-free cakes and biscuits, I thought I would make some to serve at coffee break.

Bœuf bourguignon which in older recipes is called bœuf à la Bourguignonne, seems to me to hark back to the 1970’s and dinner parties we gave and were invited to as we just moved from being students to being workers with enough money to cook with wine and not just drink it. I guess we may have come across the dish firs when we went to France, long summers spent in La Rochelle and Menton, but my mum was always an adventurous and different cook so maybe it was one of her decision dinners that introduced me to beef cooked in wine.

The bourguignon part of the name comes from the French region of Burgundy and it was the Burgundy wine which was used to cook the beef, and it’s also the traditional wine for coq au vin. I’ve made it so often over the years, but today my husband is cooking it; he’s a great cook and I don’t suppose his version will differ much from mine, beef, onions, garlic, herbs… he loves carrots so I guess some will go in because as a ‘peasant’ dish whatever was around would have been added if not to the stew itself but at least to make the stock. near the end he will add small, whole shallots, and with just enough time to let them cook, whole button mushrooms. Looking at old recipes I see that bacon fat was used to cook the onions and brown the meat, and then cubes of bacon added at the end… I think I may suggest the bacon to him, it sounds very tasty! The great thing about these sort of dishes, cooking them low and slow means they can just sit cooking for as long as you like!

The gluten-free scones are actually really tasty – I made them before for a cream tea along with ordinary scones, and actually they were as good if not better than the normal glutenny ones!