Don’t Drown the Beef
The most useful bourguignon note from this batch was not a brand or a timing — it was the liquid line.
The batch
This was built around about 2.3 lb of chuck shoulder, bacon, Cabernet Sauvignon, reduced-sodium beef broth, mushrooms, onion and carrot.
Wine first, broth carefully
The plan used about 500 ml of red wine and started with only about 250 ml of broth. More broth was optional, not automatic.
The visual rule
The liquid should rise to roughly two-thirds to three-quarters of the height of the meat. The beef should braise, not disappear under a full pot of liquid.
Mushrooms got their own treatment
The mushrooms were browned separately and added near the end so they kept some character instead of spending hours stewing in the liquid.
What is missing
We have the ingredient trail for this cook, but not the final plate photo. So this story stays in draft until the visual ending catches up with the written one.
From this cook
