Scouse

Liverpool's famous stew: beef, onions, carrots and lots of potato cooked slowly until some of the potato falls apart and thickens everything. Eat it with crusty bread and beetroot.

Ingredients

• 700 g Stewing beef, cut into bite-sized chunks
• 15 ml Vegetable oil
• 2 Onions, chopped
• 400 g Carrots, cut into chunks
• 1500 g Potatoes, peeled; a third cut small, the rest in big chunks
• 2 Beef stock cubes, made up with 1.2 litres hot water
• 15 ml Worcestershire sauce
• 1 g Bay leaves
• 3 g Salt
• 2 g Black pepper
• 1 Bread, a crusty loaf
• 250 g Cooked beetroot, sliced
• 40 g Butter, for the bread

Method

1. Heat the oil in a big heavy pan and brown the beef in batches, so it colours rather than steams. Lift it out.
2. Cook the onions in the same pan until soft.
3. Return the beef with the carrots, the small pieces of potato, the stock, Worcestershire sauce, bay leaf, salt and pepper. Bring to the boil.
4. Cover and simmer very gently, stirring now and then, until the beef is tender and the small potato pieces have broken down.
5. Add the large potato chunks and simmer, uncovered, until they're soft.
6. Squash a few of the potatoes against the side of the pan to thicken the stew. Taste for salt and pepper and fish out the bay leaf.
7. Ladle into bowls and serve with buttered crusty bread and sliced beetroot.