Serves x 6

Time – 20 mins preparation and around 3 hours cooking

Ingredients you’ll need

900g x stewing steak – chopped up into good-sized chunks

350 ml x beef stock

2 x celery sticks – cut into slices

2 x carrots – sliced

1 x onion – roughly chopped

1 x leek – sliced

1 x parsnip – cubed

1 x garlic clove – crushed

4 x big potatoes – roughly chopped into cubes

2 x bay leafs

3 x sprigs of thyme

3 x sprigs of rosemary

salt and pepper to taste

1 x knob of butter

2 x tbsp. of tomato puree

2 x tbsp. plain flour

1 x tbsp. olive oil

How to make your stew

1. Pre-heat your oven to 150ºC / 300ºF / Gas Mark 2. While it’s warming up, get to work chopping all your lovely, fresh ingredients.

2. Pop the olive oil and butter into a saucepan – frying the onions, garlic and leek together until they brown. This should only take a few minutes.

3. In a separate bowl mix the salt, pepper, flour and meat together.

4. Next, put the floury meat mix and your chopped veg into the saucepan and fry for a minute or two longer. Then pop the rest of your stew ingredients into the pan.

5. Time to get stewing! Let the stew start to simmer away in the pan then…

6. …once it begins to bubble a little more, replace the pan lid before popping it into the oven for 2 ½ – 3 hours. To tell whether your stew is ready or not, simply try a bit of the meat (just one bit now – we’re watching you!). If the meat is tender and tasty, you’re ready to serve.

The good news is, this simple stew recipe can also be made in a slow cooker, if you have one. All you need do is put all the ingredients into your slow cooker then cook on a high setting for 5 hours – or low for 10 hours. Bon appetit!

We’d love to hear if you’ve tried (and enjoyed) our recipe – or if there are any other ingredients that made their way into your stew too. Let us know so we can try it for ourselves!

Image credit: Clemens v. Vogelsang