In Heston Blumenthal’s mission to save flagging British diner-chain, he is beginning to discover that while people do like to be adventurous with food sometimes, they will always keep coming back to the classics. On a cold winter evening, you certainly can’t get more classic than a rich and saucy Beef and Ale Stew, and the good news is, it is a pretty cheap dish to make lots of. The best kind of meal in my eyes!

For a slow cooked dish like stew, cheaper cuts of beef such as shin and neck are actually the best ones you can use. The hardworking muscles in these cuts are taut and strong, which means that they are packed with flavour, and they become deliciously moist and tender as the slow cooking breaks down the tendons. The bulk of the rest of the dish is made up of root vegetables, which are nutritious, filling and, you guessed it, cheap.

I like to serve this stew with some steamed greens such as savoy cabbage, for a touch of freshness and even more vitamins.

Ingredients serves 4-6 with leftovers

400g diced braising steak (in the supermarket, it will often be labelled simply as ‘braising steak’, but feel free to ask for neck, shin or chuck if you go to a butchers)

1 Swede/rutabagas, peeled and diced

1 onion, sliced thickly

3 cloves garlic

4 medium potatoes, skin left on and quartered

4 carrots, chopped into 2 inch chunks

4 parsnips, peeled and chopped into 2 inch chunks

1 can of chopped/plum tomatoes

1 500ml bottle of ale (the darker the better. A stout like Guinness works well)

500ml stock (using beef is best but even chicken or veg is fine)

1tblspn olive oil

1tblspn plain flour

1 head savoy cabbage, shredded

salt/pepper

 Using Tesco’s Root Vegetable Selection (which contains the veg above) the ingredients come in at £8.67 in Tesco. A little over the £5 budget, but this will make 4 substantial dinners with plenty leftover for 2 lunches.  The total cost of the ingredients at Safeway, is $19.40, but this includes 5 extra bottles of Guinness (not sold individually) and will feed 4 well with leftovers for lunch.

Sadly, I am over budget once again, but for a good few healthy dinners and lunches (with leftover beer!) it is worth spending the extra £/$

Directions

In a flameproof casserole dish, heat olive oil and brown the meat with the onions and garlic (cloves left whole) for 3-5mins. Stir in flour to coat meat. If you don’t have a flameproof casserole dish, do this in a frying pan and then throw your meat into the casserole dish. Remember to deglaze the frying pan with a little of the ale afterwards though, as you don’t want to miss out on any meaty flavours!

Throw all veg except cabbage and potatoes into the dish with the meat and pour over tomatoes, stock and ale. Cover dish with a lid and place in the oven at gas mark 5/180degrees.

After one hour, remove from oven and stir in potatoes.

Return to oven for a further hour, checking occasionally to see that it still has plenty of liquid covering veg/meat. If it seems to be drying up, add a dash more stock.

10mins before strew should be cooked, remove lid to allow some final thickening. Meanwhile, steam the cabbage, either with a steamer, or by placing it in a mixing bowl with about 1 inch of water in the bottom, covering in clingfilm and then microwaving for 7mins.

Remove stew from oven and serve with cabbage.

Image via badsneaker

Missed our previous You Tight Bitch recipe? Check out Laura Silver's delicious recipe for Spicy Penne Pasta!