I’ve just purchased a slow cooker and this was the first dish I cooked in it. It was divine and everyone ate it. The meat was cooked on high for 6 hours and was very tender. You can also do this in the oven if you don’t have a slow cooker in a covered casserole. I used cornflour instead of plain flour so that the dish would be gluten free.

The same techniques works well with venison but add Guinness instead of red wine and also add a handful of stoned prunes.

175grams/ 6 ounces streaky bacon rashers

1-2 teasp olive oil

900grams/ 2lb braising steak cut into 4cm (1 ½ inch) cubes

12 small shallots – I used a red onion

1 tablespoon cornflour

300 millilitres/ 1 ¼ cup / 10 fl ounces Beaujolais or other red wine

300 millilitres/ 1 ¼ cup / 10 fl ounces beef stock

115grams / 4ounces button mushrooms

1 Bay leaf

1 teaspoon Herbes de Provence -I just used parsley

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Mashed potatoes to serve

Method:

Preheat the oven to 160C/325F

Fry bacon until lightly browned, drain on kitchen paper and transfer to casserole

Fry beef in batches to brown

Reduce the heat to medium and fry off the shallots

Transfer to casserole with a slotted spoon and stir the cornflour into the remaining fat of the frying pan. If the pan is dry mix the cornflour with a little wine or stock. Pour the wine and stock and bring to the boil stirring constantly until smooth.

Add the mushroom and bay leaf and dried herbs. Season to taste with salt and pepper and pour the contents of the pans over the meat and shallots in the casserole. Cover and cook for two hours in the oven until the meat is very tender.

If you are using a slow cooker you can brown the meat if you wish and simply place all the ingredients into the slow cooker and turn it on. I wouldn’t add the cornflour, use a slurry instead when the dish is cooked

If your sauce is still too runny add a slurry of a tablespoon of cornflour and 2 tablespoons of water to the dish and whisk in and your sauce will thicken. I also used a tablespoon of gravy browning to darken my sauce in case the kids were suspicious about the colour!

Garnish with chopped parsley and serve with mash