Beef Bourguignon

Stewing steak is the cheapest thing in the meat box and it makes the most expensive-tasting dinner in it, which is the whole joke of braising. Three hours turns tough collagen into something silky. There is nothing clever in the method — the only two things that decide whether this is good or grey are browning the beef properly in small batches, and then leaving it alone.

Ingredients

• 500 g diced stewing steak — patted very dry
• 4 rashers smoked back bacon — cut into short strips
• 2 brown onions — roughly chopped
• 400 g white mushrooms — halved, or quartered if big
• 3 cloves garlic — sliced
• 2 tbsp tomato purée
• 350 ml red wine — about half the Malbec
• 1 Knorr stock pot + 300 ml water
• 4–5 sprigs thyme
• 1 sprig rosemary
• 2 tbsp sunflower oil
• Salt and plenty of black pepper

To serve

• Mashed Maris Pipers — you want something to catch the sauce
• Peas or broccoli

Method

1. Dry the beef, then brown it. Pat the pieces properly dry and season. Heat the oil in a heavy casserole until it's shimmering, then brown the beef in three small batches, two minutes a side without moving it. Crowding the pan is the single most common way this dish goes wrong — the meat steams, stays grey, and you lose every bit of the flavour the browning was supposed to build. Set the beef aside as it's done.

2. Bacon and onions. Same pan, no cleaning. Bacon in first until its fat renders and it colours, then the onions. Cook 8 minutes on medium until soft and going golden at the edges. Garlic for the last minute.

3. Purée. Stir in the tomato purée and cook it for a full minute — it should darken and smell sweeter rather than sharp. Raw purée tastes tinny in the finished sauce.

4. Deglaze. Pour in the wine and scrape the base hard with a wooden spoon until nothing is stuck. Let it bubble for 3–4 minutes to boil off the alcohol.

5. Into the oven. Beef back in with any juices, plus the stock pot, water, thyme and rosemary. It should be barely covered — add a splash more water if not. Bring to a bare simmer, lid on, then into the oven at 150°C for 2 hours 30.

6. Mushrooms late. Fry them separately in a hot dry pan until they've given up their water and browned, then stir them in for the final 30 minutes. Adding them at the start just makes them dissolve into grey slivers and water down the sauce.

7. Check the beef, then the sauce. A piece should collapse under a fork with no resistance. If it's still chewy it isn't overcooked, it's undercooked — give it another 30 minutes. Once the beef is right, if the sauce is thin, lift the meat out and reduce the liquid hard on the hob for 10 minutes.

8. Season at the end. It will need more salt than you expect after reducing, and a lot of black pepper. Fish out the herb stalks. Serve on mash.