Charolais beef

Bœuf Charolais

What it is

Burgundy registered the breed early — the first Charolais herd book opened at Nevers in 1864 — and it has since gone to dozens of countries, almost always as a sire, bought to put muscle on other people's cows rather than to be eaten where it lands. At home it is a carcass breed with white fat and broad, coarse-grained muscles that reward long slow wet cooking far more than a hot fast fire.

In the kitchen

The coarse grain is a virtue in a braise: cut paleron or gîte into pieces at least 5 cm across so the fibres have something to hold together, and keep the pot at 85 °C for four hours rather than boiling it. Smaller cubes shred to threads long before the collagen has finished.

Goes with

Red wine vinegar Carrot Onion Bay leaf Thyme Garlic Bone marrow Button mushroom

Same species

Abura-kasu Amourettes (spinal marrow) Spider steak Bastourma Flank steak Beef

Something wrong here, or missing? Tell us