Slow-cooked beef casserole: the Warhol solution.

Oyster blade is the cut of beef that, with a little gentle coaxing, turns into one the tenderest cuts of all. The gentle coaxing involves baking it, or simmering it, very slowly until that sandwiched layer of gelatinous membrane in between the two layers of flesh (ask a farmer or a butcher) bastes the cut until the fibres break down, and your teeth consequently need to do little work at all.

I used about 750g of meat cut into forkable rectilinear (one of John Updike’s favourite words; his houses or Danish furniture or low barns are always rectilinear) pieces, and coated these in peppered flour using a shaken plastic bag with the closure held very tight. Then I browned them in peanut oil (Picky Picky from Kingaroy - who makes up these asinine brand names?) Browning is simply that: losing the redness without any burning and straight into the casserole dish. Into the browning pan went chopped onions, carrots, a turnip, and four quartered potatoes in stages, with a dash of white wine to pick up all those bits of peanutty red beef skerricks. Also into the casserole.

Then I tipped a can of Campbell's tomato soup and an equal amount of water into the browning pan, simmering it for just a minute or two to round up those last traces of flavour, and poured it over the meat and vegetables. A flourish of marjoram (more to retain some sense of credibility after using a cop-out can of soup in a recipe than anything else), a heaped teaspoonful of paprika; and into a slow oven of 150 celsius for five hours.

I made them guess what the secret ingredient was. No-one got it, but the contents of the casserole disappeared before my eyes and that's all that matters. 'What's in it?' they had asked. 'Oh, marjoram,' I said, airily, like a bored chef. 'Paprika ... things like that.'

This canned soup thing could catch on. It was only back in December (post 10/12/20) that I did that cauliflower thing with the cream of chicken soup and cheese and garlic ... must be getting lazy.