A classic casserole or stew recipe in essential in your family's recipe repertoire. You can jazz it up with more expensive ingredients like pancetta for bacon, using button onions in place of a chopped onion, adding in mushrooms, and of course using really good wine, or, you can take it down a notch by omitting the bacon, or use only beef stock. The trick is to use gravy beef, chuck, or cross cut blade - these cuts of beef being economical and will cook to being tender. If you use rump or buy beef already cut showing not fat or sinew you will end up with dry pieces of beef in a not-so nicely flavoured gravy. Like all casserole-style dishes, the flavour improves if served the next day.

Ingredients

• 500-650 grams cross-cut blade, chuck steak, or gravy beef, cut into 2cm pieces
• 1-2 onions, peeled and chopped
• 3-4 cloves garlic, peeled and diced
• 2 tablespoons tomato paste
• 1 tablespoon flour
• 1 cup red wine
• 1- 1 1/2 cups beef stock
• 6-8 prunes or 1/4 cup currants
• 1 bouquet garni ( made from a bay leaf, sprig of thyme, sage and parsley)
• salt and pepper to season

Method

1. Brown the beef in a generous quantity if oil in a frying pan. Brown well and then transfer to a plate. Add the onion, bacon and garlic to the pan and cook for 4-5 minutes to just soften the onion.
2. Add the tomato paste and cook stirring until the paste has turned a darker shade of red/brown- about 1-2 minutes. This will add both colour and flavour to the dish. Stir in the flour before stirring in the wine and beef stock. Stir to make a smooth sauce. Return the beef to dish, and add the prunes or currants and the bouquet garni.
3. Simmer in a 160 degrees Celsius oven for 1 - 1 1/2 hours. Alternatively cook in a slow cooker on low for 4 hours, or on high for 2-3 hours. Remove the bouquet garni and season well with salt and pepper before serving.