Beef stew - the ultimate in winter comfort food

Beef stew (or hotpot) has always been to me family food, and by that definition, a comfort food. In my childhood I remember my favourite meals being stews or hotpots. My absolute favourites were beef stew (the ultimate), a chicken hotpot with a shortcrust pastry topping, and a rather obscure and alarmingly simple casserole of potatoes and bacon cooked in milk. It sounds hideous, and maybe it was, but I can promise you it tasted good!

For my beef stew, I use a very basic recipe and jazz it up slightly with a few nifty additions (namely pancetta and red wine). The vegetables in my version are really embarrassingly simple: onion, carrot and potato. Of course you could use anything you wish - the joy of this is in its lack of precision. It really is "throw it in the dish" food.

I use a method similar to the one I use for coq au vin - that is that I brown off the main ingredients before transferring them to a casserole dish with a tight fitting lid. I then make a simplified version of a roux (and a much easier version, I might add). I put the casserole into a low oven for as many hours as I can stand to wait. In that sense its fairly low effort - your main challenge will be keeping your mitts off the food. I often feign concern around 3 quarters of the way through cooking. "What if it doesn't taste good?" I ask myself. "I'd better check it - don't want anyone to get food poisoning. Oh yes, it is nice, I'll just have a bit more". It really is a downward spiral. Once the time comes to eat it though, it is worth the wait, especially if served in a giant homemade Yorkshire pudding (no one said this was gourmet food...)

NB. I'm using US measurements here because that way its more about proportions than actual figures - you use the proportions here to cook for any number of people, and stews are great for feeding large numbers of people (especially with the aforementioned Yorkie Pud to bulk it out).

Ingredients:
2 cups cubed beef chuck (may be described as stewing or braising steak), lightly coated in a little plain white flour
1 cup white onion, chopped into eighths (it'll break down over the hours of cooking)
1 packet pancetta slices, sliced into yet smaller pieces
1 cup red wine
2 cups beef stock, just below boiling point
2 large all purpose potatoes, thickly sliced.
1 large carrot, thickly sliced
1 tablespoon olive oil
Salt and pepper
1 tablespoon plain flour
You'll also need: a slotted spoon, a casserole dish with a tight fitting lid, and a frying pan

Method:

1. Add the sliced pancetta to a frying pan and cook on a gentle heat. As the pancetta cooks it will impart the pan with fat which you can use to brown off the rest of the ingredients. Use a slotted spoon to drain the pancetta and add to the casserole dish.

2. Add the chopped onion to the pan and cook until it starts to brown ever so slightly. Again use the slotted spoon to remove the onions from the pan and put them in the casserole dish, leaving the fat in the pan still. 

3. Add the cubed beef to the pan and fry until browned and add to the pan. The pan will probably get very dry at this point as the flour on the beef will soak up the oil. Drain off any excess fat and add to the casserole dish.

4.  Don't bother to brown the poatoes and the carrots, just layer them with the rest of the ingredients in the casserole dish.

5. Season well with pepper, and only lightly with salt. The pancetta is salty.

6. Put your flour in a bowl and pour in the remaining oil from the pan (if there is loads left over just add about a tablespoon). Mix together to make a smooth paste. Gradually add the hot beef stock until you have a sauce (it will continue to thicken up as it cooks so don't worry if it's not too thick at this point - in fact you want it to still be quite loose at this stage). Add the wine to the beef stock mix and pour it into the casserole. The liquid should reach just above the other ingredients (you can see from the picture below it does cook down slightly which is nothing to worry about). If you don't seem to have enough liquid, top it up with boiling water.

7. Cover the casserole with the lid and put on a baking tray. Put the baking tray in the oven and cook for as long as possible (ideally 4 hours) on around 130 degrees celsius. I usually cook it on 150 degrees for the first two hours, then reduce to 120 degrees for the other two hours.

The above picture is the finished article. I check it for seasoning, and at this point you may want to add more salt to taste. A good sprinkling of fresh herbs wouldn't go amiss either, but I like to have it just like this.