ingredients

• 500g of beef, there is much debate about which is the best cut for stewing, I say either rump or braising steak.
• 2 carrots (sliced)
• a swede or turnip (cut into cubes)
• 1 onion (diced)
• 6 medium sized potatoes (halved or quartered)
• 400ml of beef stock (all important, don't skimp here)
• a glass of red wine
• tamari (or soy sauce)
• thyme
• sage
• 2 bay leaves
• plain flour
• pepper + salt
• 2-3tbl olive oil

method

This works best in a high sided pot. firstly dice the beef into nice large cubes, warm the oil in the pot. Put some plain flour into a bowl and coat a few of the pieces of the beef in flour, fry a few at a time until they are browned remove them from the pot, and repeat until all the beef is fried.

You should now have lots of pieces of lightly fried beef, and a pan coated with gunk...which is good.

add a little more oil to the pan and put the onion in, sweat for a few minutes before adding the beef, carrots, swede and potatoes. stir thoughly to coat everything with the gunk from the pan. turn the heat high, and add the wine and stock to deglase the pan, again stir thoroughly,

bring to the boil and then turn to the lowest heat, add a couple of pinches of thyme and sage, a little salt and a good few twists of pepper,several dashes of tamari and the bay leaves. Stir, put the lid on the pan and leave to simmer on the lowest heat for around 90mins - 2hrs, stir occasionally. when it starts to look like it has a nicely thickened consistency, turn off the heat, but keep it covered, leave it to cool for at least 10mins before serving.

This stuff is actually much better the following day so for the best experience, cook it on a friday evening and eat it for saturday lunch, slowly warmed.