I made Ina Garten's and Julia Kid's beef bourguignon recipes, and the results couldn't have been more than unlike

ina garten and julia child beef bourguignon

I made Ina Garten's and Julia Child'due south recipes for beefiness bourguignon.
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  • I fabricated Ina Garten'due south and Julia Child'south recipes for beef bourguignon to see which ane I'd make again.
  • Ina Garten'due south recipe was much faster and simpler to brand.
  • Even so, I preferred the terminate effect of the recipe past Julia Child.

Julia Child's recipe for beefiness bourguignon is known for being a bit challenging to make.

Julia Kid in her kitchen.
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The dish takes multiple hours to set and is a source of stress in the moving-picture show "Julie & Julia," in which ane of the characters attempts to make it and fails miserably.

I gathered the ingredients for the dish.

The ingredients for Julia Kid'southward beef bourguignon.
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The ingredients were easy to detect at my local grocery shop, except for the bottle of full-bodied red wine. Luckily, I had a bottle of Merlot in my liquor cabinet that I idea would work nicely.

The total amount I spent on groceries was $46.81. You tin detect the full list of ingredients and instructions here.

The recipe takes six hours, so I got to work. I started by prepping my vegetables.

Slicing a white onion.
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The recipe calls for one large white onion, one carrot, smashed garlic, and pearl onions. I chopped up the carrot, smashed the garlic, and cutting the onion into thin slices.

The recipe as well calls for bacon.

Sliced bacon.
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However, Child recommends preparing the bacon in an interesting mode.

Rather than frying the bacon correct away, the recipe requires placing it in simmering water for 10 minutes.

Salary blanching in water.
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The reason for this pace is to remove the smoky flavour that is standard with most brands of American bacon.

After straining the bacon with a slotted spoon and placing information technology on a paper towel to dry, I lightly browned it in my well-loved Le Creuset Dutch oven.

Bacon sautéing in the Dutch oven.
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I and so set it aside for later.

I then browned the meat in the bacon fat.

Browning the beef in the Dutch oven.
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It took a few minutes for the meat to become seared on all sides.

I so started sautéing the onions and carrots in the beef fat.

Sautéed onions and carrots.
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Once the carrots and onions had softened, I added the bacon and beef back into the pot with the vegetables, seasoned it, and sprinkled flour over the peak.

At this signal, Child recommends putting the pot into the oven for four minutes, tossing the contents, and putting information technology back in the oven.

The ingredients in the Dutch oven.
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She then recommends removing the pot from the oven and lowering the rut from 425 degrees to 325 degrees. This differs slightly from Ina Garten's recipe, which cooks at 250 degrees in the oven.

I and then added in the beefiness stock, lycopersicon esculentum paste, and vino.

The stew in the Dutch oven.
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At this step, y'all should also add in the smashed garlic and dried thyme. I so let the pot simmer on the stove for a few minutes.

Finally, it was time to let the oven do the piece of work. The stew cooks in the oven for three to iv hours.

In the terminal hour of cooking, I prepared the pearl onions and mushrooms.

Pearl onions browning in a pan.
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To fix the pearl onions, you lot'll want to sauté them in butter and oil until they're lightly browned. Then, add in a half-cup of beef stock, table salt and pepper, and a herb bouquet of parsley, thyme, and a bay leaf.

The recipe said to allow the onions simmer for 40 minutes until the liquid has evaporated and the onions are tender. I found it took far less time for this to happen — most 20 minutes. If I had left them whatever longer, they would have completely burned.

I then sautéed the mushrooms for about five minutes in a modest amount of butter.

Mushrooms cooking in a pan.
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I cooked them until they were browned and slightly soft.

At the three-hour mark, I pulled the beef bourguignon out of the oven and discovered most of the liquid had evaporated.

The beef bourguignon subsequently cooking for three hours.
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I panicked for a 2nd, thinking I had ruined it. Luckily, none of the stew had burned, but if I had left it much longer, it might have.

I added in another cup or two of beef stock, plus the pearl onions and the mushrooms, to try and make it more stew-similar, rather than a mesomorphic sludge of beef and vegetables. This stressed me out slightly, as dinner ended up beingness done way before I expected it to exist.

At that place are no words to draw just how delicious this repast was.

The finished beef bourguignon.
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You lot can serve the beef bourguignon with boiled or mashed potatoes, cauliflower, or with a piece of bread, like I did.

The sauce was rich and flavorful, and the meat was fall-autonomously tender while still having a good texture. The vegetables also however had a bite to them, and I mopped up every last driblet of the stew with the staff of life.

I also made Ina Garten's version of Julia Child's famous beef bourguignon.

Ina Garten.
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The recipe is one of Garten'south most pop — it has almost 1,000 reviews on Food Network and has earned a five-star rating. Garten has been open about the influence Julia Kid'due south iconic cookbook "Mastering the Art of French Cooking" had on her.

"I would have to say that Julia Child's my biggest culinary inspiration because she actually taught me how to cook through her cookbooks," Garten told Today in 2017. "I learned how to make hollandaise sauce the right way, so she showed me how to brand information technology the quick mode without losing whatsoever of the quality."

The primary deviation betwixt Garten'south version of the French recipe and Child'due south is the time it takes to ready each dish — Child's recipe takes six hours, whereas Garten's claims to take merely ane hr and 45 minutes.

The ingredients were easy to observe at the grocery shop, and some of them I already had in my kitchen.

The ingredients for Ina Garten's beef bourguignon.
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However, upon getting the groceries home, I noticed that about a pound of the meat I had gotten had gone off the day before and was looking slightly worse for article of clothing.

I decided to halve the recipe, which ended up beingness more sensible considering I was the only one eating it that night.

I spent $84.06 — considerably more than for the get-go recipe — on the supplies, which included a run to the liquor shop to buy cognac and a canteen of dry out red wine. You can notice the full recipe and list of ingredients here.

I started by dicing the bacon and sautéing it in olive oil in a big Dutch-oven pot like to the ane I used for Julia Child'southward recipe.

The bacon cooking in a Dutch-oven pot.
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Garten'southward recipe doesn't call for blanching the bacon, which cuts out a fair fleck of time. I cooked the bacon until it was crisp and then set information technology aside on a plate.

I then added the beefiness cubes to the bacon fat and seared it on all sides.

The beef searing in the Dutch oven.
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This is the aforementioned process as Julia Child's, although I was making less meat this time effectually. Afterwards the meat was fully browned on all sides, I placed the pieces on the same plate as the bacon.

I then added the sliced onions and carrots to the Dutch oven.

The carrots and onions in a Dutch-oven pot.
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Once the carrots and onions were lightly browned, I added two cloves of chopped garlic and connected cooking the vegetables until the garlic became fragrant.

The first major deviation between the recipes arose when Garten'due south recipe required me to flambé cognac in the pot with the vegetables.

My kitchen with a pot on the stove.
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My kitchen in Brooklyn, New York, is quite claustrophobic and the stove doesn't even take a fan. Given the nature of my kitchen — and the fact that I had a major fire in a previous apartment — I was really anxious near igniting any kind of booze in the cooking process.

Afterward consulting a few online resource and my roommate, I decided to nix the cognac and simply utilise more vino and beef broth instead.

I then added the meat and bacon back into the pot with the vegetables.

The beef bourguignon earlier adding the vino and stock.
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Despite halving the recipe, there was however a big corporeality of meat and vegetables — definitely plenty for a few people.

I then added enough wine and beef broth to well-nigh cover the meat, following Garten'south instructions.

The beefiness bourguignon with the wine and stock.
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Next, I added the lycopersicon esculentum paste and thyme and brought the stew to a simmer. And then, it was time to put it in the preheated 250-caste oven for the required one hour and 15 minutes.

Merely earlier the pot was fix to be pulled from the oven, I fabricated a butter and flour mixture in a small-scale bowl.

The flour and butter mixture in a bowl.
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Whereas Julia Kid sprinkles the meat and vegetables with flour before adding in the liquid, Garten recommends adding this mixture later taking the stew out of the oven.

I also sautéed mushrooms in butter in a stainless-steel pan.

The sautéed mushrooms in a stainless-steel pan.
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Whereas Kid uses whole mushrooms, Garten says to remove the stalks before thinly slicing them.

After mixing in the butter, flour, frozen pearl onions, and mushrooms, I brought the pot to a boil on top of the stove, so lowered the heat and simmered information technology for another 15 minutes.

The finished beef bourguignon.
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Whereas Kid'due south beefiness bourguignon didn't accept enough liquid when I made information technology, Garten's had a bit too much liquid and could have cooked off for a longer period of fourth dimension.

However, the meat and vegetables were tender. According to the recipe's instructions, it was done.

Garten recommends serving the stew on summit of two pieces of toasted bread.

The finished beef bourguignon on meridian of two pieces of breadstuff.
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The consistency of Garten'due south beef bourguignon was slightly watery compared to Child's version, just it was nonetheless actually tasty. The bread was a nice addition and helped soak upwards some of the excess liquid, and the meat was tender.

However, I would have liked the sauce to be slightly thicker. This could have been accomplished with less liquid to start with or by leaving the stew in the oven or on the stove for longer.

Despite the work and stress that went into preparing Julia Child's beef bourguignon, it was well worth it in the cease and slightly edged out Ina Garten's version.

The author property upwardly "Mastering the Fine art of French Cooking" by Julia Child.
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While I actually enjoyed both versions and thought Ina Garten's was much more than realistic for a weeknight meal, I couldn't help but admit that I preferred the event of Julia Kid's recipe. While it took considerably more time and endeavor, I thought it was worth it — given that I happened to have the fourth dimension and energy for it.

Some recipes are iconic for a reason.

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