Name: Boeuf en Daube
Yield: Serves 6
Ingredients: handful of good black olives, pitted; cooked noodles or white rice, to serve; 2 tablespoons olive oil; 1.3 kg/3 lb top rump of beef or shin, cut into ‘squares’, in the words of Elizabeth David, ‘the size of half a postcard’ and about 1 cm/½ inch thick; 5 rashers unsmoked streaky bacon, cut into small pieces; 85 g/3 oz fresh pork rinds (optional); 3 carrots, cut into 1 cm/½ inch slices; 4 tomatoes, skinned, deseeded and sliced; 2 clove garlic, bruised; 2 bay leaves; 5 black peppercorns, crushed; 1 bay leaf; ½ x 75 cl bottle of good red wine; 1– 2 sprigs of rosemary; 4 clove garlic, bruised; small strip of pared orange rind; 2 tablespoons olive oil a few sprigs of thyme; 3 onions, finely chopped; 4 parsley stalks

Preparation info

Serves
6

Difficulty
Medium

Appears in

Let's Eat

By Tom Parker Bowles

Published 2013

About

I remember this dish from Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse. Actually, it’s about all I remember from the book, the ‘…exquisite scent of olive and oil and juice’ rising from the dish as the top was taken off. It took Mrs Ramsay’s maid, Mildred, three days to cook, although this seems a touch excessive. Overnight in the marinade, I suppose, then a few hours in a low oven. It’s always better the next day anyway. But the ever-anxious hostess’s frets about it