Alsatian cooking is famous for slow-cooked mixed-meat stews with wine and vegetables (Baekeoffe, choucroute) as Belgian and German cooking is famous for stews with beer (one of my favorites from Germany, anciently simple, uses equal weights of three ingredients: leeks, beef, beer). Medieval Italian construction workers reportedly developed "Il peposo" by tossing cheap market cuts of meat into an outdoor pot with red wine and peppercorns in the morning, cooking it slowly for a mid-day meal. The centuries have not improved on the idea.
Circumstance lately gave me mushrooms and two cuts of beef about one kg each, internally lean and fibrous. I wanted to make something good that would keep, but without trouble. What to do?
What I did was assemble in a stew pot in the following order, dried herbs (especially marjoram), good red wine, a large handful of garlic cloves peeled and mashed lightly with the side of a large knife; two each fresh carrots and onions diced, and a little diced ham. Leaving these ingredients to get acquainted, I trimmed the outer fat from the beef, and sliced across the grain forming disks or cutlets about 1-1.5 cm or one-half inch thick, rubbed just a little salt onto them, and layered them among the wine and aromatic vegetables. Adding more wine (altogether a good 1.5 bottles) to cover it all, I covered the pot and heated gently on the stove to a boil, then reduced to barely bubbling. While it cooked I cleaned a scant kg of large fresh button mushrooms with a damp brush (minimizing water directly on the mushrooms, which they would tend to absorb) and kept them ready.
After an hour of gentle bubbling, the stew's components had given off liquid, combining with the wine. I drew off a liter or so of liquid with a shallow ladle, and reduced it in a separate saucepan over a strong flame to about one-third its original volume, and kept this second pot simmering, while the stew continued to cook. After a total of two hours of gentle bubbling, the meat cutlets were tender and I removed them to a platter (intending them to cool and be stored with the rest of the stew for later use). I beat a little flour with some wine and incorporated into the remaining stew to give just a little thickening, like a light syrup. I then quartered the mushrooms and added them to the stew pot along with the reduced liquid, cooking all vigorously for just a few minutes so the mushrooms were just done and tender. I also did final salting at this time. Off of the heat to cool and join the meat for later use. Result was wonderful, better on reheating as usual, served with coarse bread and more good red wine on the side. Also, house smelled richly of wine, garlic, herbs, mushrooms. (Almost worth the effort just for that.)
Here is a related book posting from 1992 (Morrison Wood):
-- Max