STEP 10: This is where Julia’s recipe gets more complicated than we need it to be, and where I make some adjustments. In her recipe, she asks the cook to strain the liquid from the finished stew and reduce it to a thicker gravy in a saucepan. Instead, I remove the lid from the baking dish when there are 45 minutes left on the timer, which allows the braising liquid to evaporate and reduce in the baking dish itself. At this point, I also add in one 12-ounce bag of frozen pearl onions to the stew, another adjustment that differs from Julia’s recipe, in which she asks the cook to peel individual pearl onions and braise them in beef stock.