Welcome back everyone!

Trust everyone is doing well and surviving summer thus far.

Right now I’d like you to go ahead and grab a chair. Or remain lying in bed if that is your preferred way to read Sunday Gravy.

I’ve got some ‘splaining to do.

It’s time to give you a little insight about my food ideas and inspirations and how those ideas then become an episode of Sunday Gravy.

I have a notepad app on my phone where I keep my grocery lists, book recommendations, movies and TV show suggestions and restaurants that I haven’t visited yet. I also keep track of recipe ideas on there.

It works like this; I’ll be reading about food or watching a food show, travel show or even better a show about food AND travel and if I see something that catches my eye or looks interesting, I’ll jot that shit down on the notepad app for potential future investigation.

Today’s meal has been a note on my phone for a little over 3 years.

This was taken from an episode of Anthony Zimmern’s show Delicious Destinations which yes, is a food and travel show. The episode was about the Provence region in France and this meal was on the show. It looked very tasty, fairly simple and was just exotic sounding enough that I thought it could be a good Sunday Gravy episode.

Three or so years later, here we are.

Today we will be making “daube” or as Wikipedia explains: “Daube is a classic Provençal (or more broadly, French) stew made with inexpensive beef braised in wine, vegetables, garlic, and herbes de Provence, and traditionally cooked in a daubière, or a braising pan.”

Yes, it’s a stew BUT it has a couple of “pieces of flair” that turn this from a standard beef stew into something borderline legendary.

Pronunciation “Dobe.” One syllable long “O.”

It’s extremely delicious is what I’m babbling on about. What really separates this from a traditional beef stew is a heavy amount of French wine and a huge amount of garlic. Two of my favorite things already. It’s phenomenal.

I did a couple things when I prepared the dish that most definitely do NOT fit your standard French daube preparation. The first was due to time expediency. You’re supposed to cook the daube and then let it cool and refrigerate it for anywhere from 1-3 days prior to serving. I did not. I served when it had just finished cooking.

Second difference and just a warning, some of you folks may be disturbed by this: I did not use a cheap cut of meat.

In fact, I used this.

Yes folks. That’s ribeye steak and I did indeed stew it.

I know, I know. Give me hell. Get it out of your systems, but listen first.

The recipe called for beef. Beef is currently stupid fucking expensive. I had this in the freezer, I was not going to purchase additional beef when I had already paid for this.

My rules.

To give you an idea how far of a variance this is from the meat used in the original recipe, when daube was first created they often used horse meat.

Rib-eye is definitely not the same texture, flavor or toughness as Barbaro. 

Enough with the jibber jabber.

We begin.

Today’s recipe is courtesy of thecafesucrefarine.com

DAUBE!

“¼ cup all purpose flour

2 teaspoons salt

½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

2-2 ½ pounds sirloin tip roast trimmed and cut into 1 ½ to 2-inch cubes* Or, you know, RIBEYE!

2 tablespoons sunflower oil or other neutral flavored oil

12 medium garlic cloves peeled and crushed slightly

2 cups dry red wine

2 cups low sodium beef broth

1 pound carrots

1 medium onion halved and sliced in thin wedges

2 tablespoons tomato paste

1 tablespoon finely chopped fresh rosemary plus more for garnishing

1 tablespoon fresh thyme leaves plus more for garnishing

2 medium bay leaf

1 tablespoon butter

1 pound mushrooms”

Now we’re going to need to mince up an entire onion.

Then a goodly amount of carrot.

Original recipe called for baby carrots but this is going to cook for awhile so regular carrot-size carrots will be fine.

And what I mentioned earlier about garlic? I was NOT fucking around.

Just lightly crush the garlic, remove the skins and use them whole.

If you’re worried that this may be a lot of garlic, well, it is! BUT! It does not overpower the dish. It basically melts right into the stew and just gives the dish a fucking garlicky awesomeness to it. Don’t wimp out on me. Use the whole goddamn12 cloves.

Here’s the part where you steak aficionados will cringe. Cut up the ribeye into chunks.

Yes. I did indeed remove some of that fat as well.

It’s really a delicious meal I promise!

Grab a bowl and add in the flour and some salt and pepper, then drop them steak chunks in there.

Keep the leftover flour after this step, it will get used in a moment.

Grab yourself a skillet then heat up the oil until the pan is hot. Get the floured meat bits in there.

Cook for a few minutes then turn the meat over.

When the meat has been browned remove it to a bowl and set aside for now.

Wine. This dish is French so we should probably use a rich hearty French wine.

I have that.

This is a “Côtes du Rhône” wine. We have a few wine experts here at DFO who can fill in the details a hell of a lot better than me but just know it comes from a wine growing region on the Rhône river and it’s part of a collective of wine producers that all grow within the same region.

It’s dry, tart and very full bodied. It’s fantastic and absolutely perfect for this dish.

To answer your question, yes I do indeed drink this wine regularly. I love it. Years back when I was cooking a dish with wine I specifically mentioned that you need to use a wine that you actually would drink when cooking with it. Don’t get all cheap and shit by grabbing the lowest price bottle of pond scum off of the bottom shelf. If you are a wine drinker use something that you know and like.

End of sermon.

The delicious French wine and the garlic are the first two “pieces of flair” that make this dish stand out. There will be more to come including this again.

Homemade stock. Just like last week.

While it should definitely be a beef stock in this recipe, I know the character, richness and depth of this homemade chicken stock and it will work just fine.

Add the wine to the pan next and deglaze the pan. Use a wooden spoon to scrape up all of the juicy meaty bits or “fond” from the pan. You will then cook until you reduce the wine by about half.

This smells fucking delightful by the way.

Now we will add in the stock, tomato paste  and the remaining flour. Stir well and continue cooking for just a couple of minutes to make a nice rich gravy-like substance that has absorbed the flour.

Next we will put our browned beef bits and our veggies into a baking dish then cover with the wine/stock mixture. Top with the rosemary and thyme.

Yeah, I really filled this fucker to the top. So much so that when I put it in the oven I had a baking dish on the rack underneath it. Just in case you see.

This needs to be covered with a lid and it will bake in a 300 degree oven for 2 1/2 to 3 hours.

After it has finished cooking we will have something like this.

The smell of this will slap you right upside the olfactory center of your senses. Holy shit does this smell fantastic .

We will finish the daube with our last little trick. We are going to sauté some mushrooms in butter, a little splash of the same wine and some finely minced garlic. The trick to this? This gets done right at the end and served over the daube! Cool shit. This way the mushrooms won’t dissolve during the cooking process.

Take the butter and melt it down before adding the mushrooms, wine and garlic.

Sauté away.

Traditional daube is sometimes served over mashed potatoes, polenta or like we’ll be doing today…

Over some egg noodles.

Cook ’em up already.

We should do some bread too. Let’s use the leftover loaf from last week.

Grab a bowl and get some of those noodles in there.

Ladle some daube over the top.

Mushrooms go over that.

And serve.

 

Rich, decadent, garlicky, full bodied, fuck me I’m truly at a loss for words.

This shit is worth cooking anytime of year. Shit damn I would cook this in a heat wave. It is wonderful.

Yes, sampled a day or two later, it absolutely got better each day.

Simple, rustic, satisfying to the soul.

Don’t we NEED more dishes like this? Goddamn right we do.

Give this baby a try. You won’t be disappointed.

Mid summer holiday break is over folks. Got to head back to the 5 day a week grind.

Just a few more weeks until Training Camps open and we can begin the countdown to another football season in earnest.

I like that.

Wanted to also send out a quick reminder: Interested in meeting many of your DFO authors and knuckleheads? How about in Vegas? I’ll be there too. Hell yes, we’re having DFOCON2023 in Vegas this year! Our first one since 2019. We’ll be staying downtown near Fremont Street and will be there between November 3 – 7 with the “everyone there” days of Saturday and Sunday November 4-5. Some talk about attending the Giants vs Raiders game on 11-4 too. Interested? Let me know in the comments and we’ll get you some more info. It will be FUCKING INSANE!

Take care folks and thanks for stopping by. Enjoy your Sunday and I’ll see you back here next week.

Deal?

Deal.

PEACE!