The creamy beef stew, “blanquette de veau” in French, is my favourite traditional French meal. My granny -the same granny who makes the lemon pie, used to do it each week when I was visiting during my childhood, and I remember its wonderful taste until nowadays. It is a kind meat ragout with a white cream and flour sauce. Usually made with veal, you can either make it with poultry or pork.
There are lots of different ways to do tha blanquette, but I like this recipe because there are a lot of vegetables instead.
I like it because:
- it’s one of the easiest recipes I have ever done.
- You can eat it with rice or potatoes.
Tricks:
- Since veal isn’t common in Spain, and since over the years I’ve become a little uneasy about eating this meat, I’ve started cooking this with chicken instead. The only difference is the time of cooking, 45 minutes instead of 1h30.
- Cook the blanquette one day in advance and let it rest one night in the fridge. It tastes even better the day after once the flavour sets in !!!
INGREDIENTS FOR 4 PEOPLE :
Ragout:
- 1 onion
- 4 cloves
- 1 bouquet garni (buy it already done or use two thyme branches and 2 bay leaf)
- 4 carrots
- 1,1 lb (500g) mushrooms
- 2 celery stalks, to give taste to the sauce
- Oil and butter for the pot
- 2,2 lb (1kg) veal or poultry, cut into medium pieces
- 2/5 US cup (100 ml) white wine
- Salt, fresh grounded pepper and coriander and any other seasoning you like
- 2 vegetable or spice broth cube
Sauce:
- 3 tbsp (40g) butter
- 1/3 US cup (40g) flour
- 3/4 US cup (200 ml) of heavy cream
FRENCH CREAMY BEEF STEW RECIPE
- Peel and thinly slice the carrots and the mushrooms
- Peel the onion and put the cloves in it
- Add the butter, a bit of oil in the pot, and when it’s hot (the butter is starting to bubble), add the pieces of meat and stir for about 5 minutes, the time for all of them to get browned on all sides. Add salt, pepper, coriander in powder ... At the end you can deglaze with a bit of white wine
- Add all the vegetables you prepared before in the pot, the celery stacks, 2 flavor cubes, the bouquet garni and cover with boiled water.
- Now you just have to cover and let it cook very slowly for around 1h30 or 45 minutes if it is chicken.
- After this, add the 40g of butter in a small pot, melt it and when it is hot, add the flour (same volume as butter) and mix. Once it make a paste, add a bit of the stock in it and mix.
- Put it back in the big pot, add the cream and let cook 10 more minutes. Then it’s ready 🙂
This stew can be served with rice or potatoes.
Bon appétit!
