Boeuf Bourguignon, but make it vegetarian
BRAISED EGGPLANT STANDS IN FOR THE MEAT, WITH DRIED AND FRESH MUSHROOMS BOOSTING THE FLAVORS. YOU WON’T MISS THE BEEF.
ON A TRIP to Paris in July, my partner and I ate a dish that was the perfect meeting of our tastes. Let me explain: Though not a vegetarian, my partner often eschews meat and seafood. I, on the other hand, love them both. I often have to search longer for dishes to prepare that we both like, or hunt for restaurants with a menu diverse enough to suit both our tastes. The dish we had in Paris was a variation of beef Bourguignon — that classic preparation of beef stewed in red wine — but in place of beef stood large chunks of braised eggplant.
The dish came at the halfway point of a tasting-menu lunch at Septime, a restaurant in the 11th arrondissement led by chef Bertrand Grébaut. We hadn’t planned to go there, but after finding that most restaurants on our list were closed on a Monday (rookie mistake), it happened to be close by and had an open table (shockingly, considering how hard it is to score a reservation). It turned out to be one of the best things either of us had the whole trip, or in recent memory.
Large blocks of eggplant were coated in a rich, winey sauce, adorned with tiny mushrooms and cloaked in cellophane-thin slices of French cured ham topped with fried tarragon leaves. It tasted like the classic dish but better: The creamy eggplant’s interior provides relief from the rich sauce where the typical beef cubes would only amplify it.
When I got back to L.A., I wanted to re-create the dish for both of us. But in keeping with my partner’s taste, I also wanted to make it fully vegetarian. Yes, a lot of the flavor of the restaurant dish came from chicken stock and those strips of cured ham, but a vegetable was its focus; I wanted to keep it that way in every sense. And in late summer to fall, when eggplant is at its best — but we get glimpses of cooler weather in Southern California — I feel it is the perfect dish to bridge the seasons.
Changing the traditional beefy dish to vegetarian is surprisingly simple. Swap the butter for olive oil? Check. Swap the chicken stock for vegetable stock? Check. And swap the beef for eggplant? Easy. The rest of the dish is all vegetable aromatics and wine and seasonings. The key to creating a vegetarian — or in this case, accidentally vegan — version of the classic was adding a few other ingredients to lend unctuous, meaty flavors that animal fat and protein usually provide.
Instead of using vegetable stock alone, I steep dried mushrooms in warm stock so they diffuse as much of their umami quality as possible. The rehydrated mushrooms get chopped and stirred into the sauce as well, doubling the flavor of the traditional sautéed mushrooms in the dish. I also sauté components of the dish one after the other to build a flavorful suc (in French cooking, the word means the “essence” of the ingredients; more commonly, the fond or browned bits on the bottom of the pot) that add even more flavor to the stew.
I first fry the tarragon leaves in clean olive oil so they can flavor it with their distinct anise-like freshness. I then fry sliced mushrooms in the infused oil, cooking them over a lower heat than usual so their moisture evaporates and they begin to brown slowly. Once the mushrooms are removed, I brown the eggplant, flipping 1½-inch-thick disks of eggplant until well browned on both sides, similar to searing the outside of a filet mignon. Then, once the suc has layers of tarragon, mushrooms and eggplant, I add the onions, celery, carrots and garlic to pick up all that essence off the bottom of the pot.
The type of eggplant is key to the success of this dish — or at least the re-creation of it — too. You can absolutely cut up a giant, deep-purple Italian eggplant into large chunks, but I like using tidy disks of the more narrow Japanese/Chinese or Fairy Tale eggplants, since they so perfectly mimic pieces of beef in the traditional dish. Also, having their skin intact around the whole pieces keeps the soft insides from breaking apart in the cooked dish. If you’re worried about the skin being inedible, though, don’t. It cooks through by the end so each piece of eggplant is spoonably soft.
After an hour in the oven, braising low and slow with the mushroom-enhanced stock, thyme and bay leaves, it’s time for the dish’s final step. In the traditional beef version, roomtemperature butter is mixed with an equal amount of flour — this is called a beurre manié — then whisked into the sauce to thicken, like the reverse form of a roux. Though it’s not absolutely necessary, I like to keep that detail to add the luxurious, lip-smacking texture to the sauce that is missing without the aid of the gelatin from meat.
In my vegan version, however, I mix the flour with a little olive oil, and it still works perfectly. The sauce thickens enough to coat the eggplant pieces in a rich mushroom gravy that I then spoon over couscous to absorb all those wonderful flavors I took so long to build.
Though it may not look as refined and attractive as the restaurant inspiration, it’s something I’m proud to serve to my partner and all my dinner guests, as we anticipate cooler weather and the excuse to eat hearty stews that can find a place at everyone’s table.