Beef in red wine sauce is a gorgeous warming meal. It takes a little time to prepare but the taste is worth it. Enjoy with the family at the weekend.

There are some days when I just feel like pottering about in the kitchen. There is something relaxing about stirring pots and pans and taking your time to create a meal.

When you sit down to eat it tastes much nicer, a reward for the work you put in and the extra time you have taken to make it.

Usually I make some time for cooking at the weekend. When you work all week then you just want quick meals that you can prepare with no fuss when you come home. Sundays are great days for spending in the kitchen.

As I had a bottle of red wine I thought I should make something to enjoy the wine with. I decided that beef in red wine sauce would make the perfect accompaniment. It was also the ideal meal for cooking slowing, enjoying the delicious smells that wafted from the oven as the beef cooked.

The beef in red wine sauce is cooked in stages. First the beef is browned gently in a pan. While it is browning the onions, garlic and mushrooms can be chopped and then added to the pan to sauté. Finally the sauce is made, mixing tomato purée, red wine and beef stock and bringing to a gentle simmer. A few herbs are added and then the dish is cooked in the oven in a casserole dish. It is left to cook for a couple of hours until the beef absorbs the flavours of the wine and becomes meltingly tender.The beef in red wine sauce will take an hour and a half to cook leaving you time to prepare some vegetables to go with it. It is perfect served with mash or on a warmer day some salad and crusty bread. The sauce is perfect for mopping up with crusty bread, a habit I learnt during family holidays in France and that my dad always frowned upon.

The beef in red wine sauce was perfect for a leisurely meal, enjoyed with a glass of red wine eaten outside in the garden with the birds singing in the tree. We enjoyed a rare sunny evening, in an August that had been more like Autumn with rain and drizzle more common than sunshine. It was rich and tasty and there was plenty to go around.

It would be the perfect dish for enjoying at a dinner with friends, it could be prepared ahead of time and just cooked in the oven and brought out at dinner time. It could also be cooked in a slow cooker, prepared the night before and placed in the slow cooker in the morning. I imagine it would be lovely to come home to the smell wafting around the house on a cold winter evening. The dish was a big success and I will be making it more often.

Beef in red wine recipe

Beef in red wine

Serving Size 4

Ingredients

700 g beef braising steak
150 g 5 rashers back bacon
1 onion
2 cloves garlic
250 g mushrooms
300 ml red wine
1 tbsp tomato purée
300 ml beef stock
1 tbsp thyme
salt and pepper
2 tbsp corn flour
2 tbsp cold water

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 150C Gas Mark 3
Cut the steak into cubes and season with salt and pepper
Trim the fat off the bacon and cut into small pieces.
Add some oil to a pan and gently brown the beef and bacon for two to three minutes.
Peel and chop the onions and garlic and chop the mushrooms.
Add to the pan and cook for around three minutes
Add the wine, tomato purée and stock and bring to a simmer.
Add the herbs and transfer to a casserole dish
Place in the oven and cook for 2 hours, until the beef is tender.
Mix the cornflour with the water until smooth and stir into the casserole to thicken the sauce. Simmer on the hob for a couple of minutes.