Daube Provencale

Daube — specifically boeuf en daube a la provencale — is a traditional beef stew of Provence, in southeastern France. The name has come to refer to the dish and to the tall, narrow earthenware vessel in which it is traditionally cooked, the daubiere. No specific inventor is documented; it is a peasant and family preparation of the region, built on the cheap, tough cuts of beef that the long, slow braise in red wine could tenderize. The meat is typically marinated in red wine with vegetables and aromatics for many hours — often overnight — before braising; the marinade then becomes the braising liquid. The dish is classically made a day ahead, because the flavors improve overnight.

A bowl of daube brings up fork-tender cubes of beef in a deep, glossy, wine-dark sauce, with carrots, onions, and olives throughout. The meat is succulent and falling apart, saturated with the wine; the sauce is complex — the tannins and fruit of the wine, the herbs of Provence, sometimes a faint bitterness of orange zest — and thickened by the gelatin dissolved from the long braise. Eaten hot with potatoes, pasta, or polenta.

Daube rests on the long, slow braise of cheap, collagen-rich beef in an acidic wine marinade. The meat is marinated in red wine with vegetables and herbes de Provence for many hours, which begins to extract flavor and soften the muscle fibers; the marinade then becomes the braising liquid. The long, gentle simmer — typically several hours — dissolves the collagen in the connective tissue into gelatin, which tenderizes the meat and gives the sauce its body and gloss. The wine's acidity and alcohol help break down the muscle structure and extract gelatin; the tannins and pigments (anthocyanins) give the sauce its dark color and astringent depth. The traditional daubiere — tall and narrow, with a recessed lid that holds water — traps steam and returns it as condensation, keeping the braise moist over the long cook.