From our good friend, Nick de Toldi, who features gourmet www.gourmetfly.com
Red wine stew, to be used for a tough shoulder, leg or fillet of boar or any other big game. In Provence, this would be called a “Daube”.
Cut into pieces or cubes between 1 and 2 inches. Gather in the kitchen, wheat flour, 1 onion, a small carrot, one or two heads of
garlic, a thick and fat slice of smoked bacon (du lard fumé), a can of mushrooms (or fresh ones), a bottle of strong red wine, salt pepper, herbs de Provence, bay leaf, the smallest can of concentrated tomatoes, fresh parsley.
Take a deep thick pot or casserole with a cover. Place butter and oil in it and the little cubes of fat bacon. (You’ll have cut your slice before of course). The melting grease of the bacon flavours the fat.
Once warm, put the onion cut into pieces. The carrot cut into thin slices.The garlic, and after a while the cubes of meat. Your fire must be quite strong and you must move these things all the time. The meat becomes grey and looses moisture. If you find it all too dry add some oil.
Do that for around five minutes then reduce fire and put your fingers in the flour pack, take what you can and sprinkle on the meat. The top becomes white. Turn it all, the white disappears, everything dries, don’t let it burn but it must become dark brown. Do it again a second time: Fingers in the flour etc… Then add your concentrated tomatoes, 1 or 2 tablespoons no more. Mix it all again. Add your mushrooms (well dried). Mix again and leave it a short while. (A wee dram of Armagnac is allowed at this stage).
Add the wine, all the meat must be under the wine level. No more, no less. Put the salt, the pepper the laurel leaf and the parsley thoroughly cut.
Activate fire and let it boil frankly while moving it all continuously. Scrapwell the bottom. Once it is boiling, reduce fire to minimum, place cover on top and let it cook smoothly for two hours. That is the word “mijoter”. From time to time, you can lift cover, look and mix.
After these two hours, you stop the fire and let it rest covered another hour. Then you can taste and see if you’ve put enough salt at the beginning or if you must add more.
Leave it like this and if possible serve only the next day, after another hour of very gentle heating.
This dish is served with boiled potatoes or rice or big pasta like fresh fettuccine or tagliatelle.
If you proceed like this, the wine has evaporated a lot, the sauce is brown and thick, but still all the meat is inside the sauce. If you evaporate too much by leaving fire too strong, you can add some (half a glass) water but never any crude wine.