This is not a quick simple dish.   You need to think about it at least the day before and as I made it in the slow cooker it needs all day to cook slowly and succulently.   A great dish for a Sunday dinner instead of roast or for a warming meal on Saturday evening after a day out in the cold and wet.   

After marinading overnight and then all day cooking the meat just melts in the mouth and the vegetable all fell to bits.  I served it with roasted skins,  caramelised carrots with caraway cabbage.  

Ingredients 
Braising or Stewing Steak cut to bite sized pieces
Carrots sliced
Celery sliced 
Onion  chopped
A bottle of red wine – I used a cheap one which worked very well (the experts say use the most expensive you can afford but I served that in a wine glass along side – delicious)
Thyme – good handful of sprigs
Bay leaves – one or two
Ginger peeled and cut into small bite sized chunks 
Olive oil 

Put the meat into a large basin and cover with the whole bottle of wine.

Leave overnight in the fridge.  

In the morning 

Chop the vegetables and lay them on a small slug of olive oil in a warmed slow cooker pot.

Drain the meat but reserve the juices.   Fry the meat in a separate pan to seal it.  The meat will already be deep in colour having taking in the flavour of the wine.




When browned add to the pot on top of the vegetables 

In the same pan add the remainder of the marinaded wine and and bring to the boil.   


Once boiling a scum will form so remove this and use the rest of the liquid to cover the meat mix.

Add the Thyme and Bay leaves.    Cover and leave cooking for several hours.   

At this point if I was cooking the meat in a conventional stewpot in the oven I would add a quantity of stock,  (beef, chicken or vegetable) to stop it drying out at all, it can be cooked off later but better to keep it moist whilst stewing.

I left it cooking on a low heat for 6 hours and it was heavenly, but you know your cooker best and you know your lifestyle and when you will need to eat.  You could add a few potatoes (new would work best and not mush up).  Leave them to cook in the juices so you could just come in and serve.

This went down so well and had lots of subtle rushes of flavouring.   I had planned to have it again for lunch the next day but it all disappeared that night.

Enjoy and let me know if you can come up with a variation.

For the caramelised carrots I used baby whole carrots (it is good to use whole ones anyway rather than sliced, I chose baby ones).  Place these in boiling water with a good handful of butter and sugar together with a  star anise.  Let the carrots boil away till the water has all gone and they just glaze over.  Serve them without the star anise.

The cabbage was the last minute preparation sliced then cooked in just a knob of butter with a handful of pre-roasted caraway seeds added just before serving.   

The inspiration for this meal came from the lovely Tom Kerridge at The Hand and Flowers   

.

Find out what I am up to in my other blog  Tiggy Hayes