This was quite a tasty dish, but wasn’t my usual recipe.
Take some braising steak or stewing steak, and in a hot pan, add a little oil (no need for olive oil as the flavour will be cooked out). The aggresively brown the beef. Only brown a little at a time, browning in batches and ensure that the pan is hot so that the beef does brown and doesn’t stew – as you don’t want it to stew at this time.
Once you have browned all the beef, remove the final batch of beef and add some chopped vegetables to the pan. I used carrot, parsnips, leeks and onions. You could also add celery (yuck) or swede or other root vegetables.
Once the vegetables have browned add some plain flour (just a spoonful) and stir.
Once it starts to stick add a splash of red wine and some beef stock, this should deglaze the pan.
Place everything into a casserole dish, lid on and cook in the oven (not too hot) for a hour or so, adding more stock if the dish starts to dry out.
In a frying pan cook some chopped bacon (I used pancetta) and cook off, then remove the bacon and add some button mushrooms and some freshly chopped parsley. Cook for a minute or two, in the main to soak up the bacon flavour.
Add the bacon and mushrooms about thirty minutes before you serve. I also addeda splash of balsamic vinegar as well.
Serve with crusty bread, mash or roasted potatoes with some fresh steamed green vegetables.
