Just to start it off, this one is very simple.
Start off with good quality diced beef, usual chuck and blade, a bit more fat but bags of flavour, cut large lumps off but leave the marbling and allow 3 to 4 oz or more per person. Place beef in a plastic freezer bag with a couple of table spoons of flour, some dried herbs usual things like thyme, basil, oregano, etc, and salt and pepper.
Toss well inside bag to coat with the flour/ herb mix.
In a really hot pan seal the meat, the best results are gained if you leave it alone and do not move it around in the pan too much, what you need is a good caramelisation on the meat with out it burning and with out losing the juices.
Put the browned meat on to a plate to rest.
In the same pan first put chopped onion as much as you like but at least 2 or three onions and about 4 cloves of Garlic chopped for a family of 4, and brown in the pan.
Then add diced parsnip, swede, carrots, and brown again.
Return meat to the pan and add 1/2 a bottle of wine, a beef oxo cube and a veg oxo cube. allow the wine to thicken the sauce and reduce slightly then replace with water until you get a fairly light thin consistency.
At this point add the other seasoning - salt, pepper, a couple of table spoons of Mushroom Ketchup, Worcester sauce to taste, and a couple of table spoons of reasonably good but not the very expensive balsamic vinegar - all these add depth to the flavour. Sometimes, at this point I will add some chopped potato and that way the only thing you need to serve with this is some good crusty bread and butter, but thats up to you.
Now comes the techno bit:
Transfer the contents of the pan to a large casserole dish (and this will work although you would think it might not) - Cover the casserole firstly with cling wrap and then cover again with tin (Alcan?) foil making sure it is as well sealed as you can make it. Then put it in an oven at 150c for a 30 mins then drop to 125c for a couple of hours - do not be tempted to check inside unless you are prepared to reseal completely again.
When it comes out of the oven check for consistency, and add more stock only if required - then serve.
Outrageously good. Food to die for.