Slow Cooked beef Ragu Recipe

I love this recipe for a few reasons. It's really tasty, it's cheap and it's easy. What more could you want?

You can use pretty cheap cuts of beef such as stewing steak, and the aim is to slow cook it until it's tender and falls apart (simple huh?). You will need to brown the meat on the hob before popping it in the oven.

I use my le creuset dish although any cast iron casserole dish will be fine as you can transfer it straight from the hob to the oven. You can use a slow cooker if you have one too. If you don't have a cast iron casserole dish or a slow cooker simply brown the meat in a frying pan and transfer to a regular casserole dish.

Slow cooked beef ragu

Ingredients:

500g Stewing steak

1 beef stock cube

2 x 500g cartons of passata

4 garlic cloves or frozen cubes

1 glass red wine

salt and pepper

250ml water

2 tablespoons of olive oil

(optional - mozzarella to serve)

Method:

• Preheat the oven at 150C
• Dice the steak into 2cm chunks and brown with the olive oil and stock cube over a medium heat for approximately 5 minutes.
• Add the garlic to the beef in the last minute of browning
• Add the passata, water and wine to the beef and stir in with a pinch of salt and pepper (to your taste)
• If cooking in the oven, cut a circular piece of grease-proof paper the same diameter as the dish and place over the sauce. This will keep the moisture in. Dont worry about this in a slow cooker.
• Cook on a low heat (no higher that 150C) for 2 1/2 to 3 hours.
• When you take the ragu out of the oven, gently separate the chunks of beef with 2 forks. They should fall apart easily.
• Serve mixed in with pasta. I like to grill mozzarella on top too as a little extra.