Fusion or confusion? This melding of a cliched Italian staple with an English-style slow-cooked beef casserole results in my favourite winter dish ever.
Take a kilogram of gravy beef (shin beef in Britain), cut it into 5cm pieces, flour and season it and brown it in olive oil - in batches - in a large pan. Set it aside in a big round casserole dish. Add a finely chopped onion to the vacated pan and stir until soft. Add a garlic clove and a sprig of fresh thyme and stir until aromatic. (Add more oil as necessary.)
Add the beef back to the pan, along with a can of diced tomatoes, a cup of beef stock, half a cup of wine (red or white - I used white), and bring almost to the boil. Transfer to the casserole, place it in a low oven (150-160 celsius) and let it burble away quietly for three hours. (The gravy beef, laden with gelatine, will separate on prodding it with a roasting fork after the long slow cooking process.)
When almost ready to serve, cook 250g of ravioli, which is about half a regular-sized supermarket pre-made pack - La Triestina is the best of these, but you might have trouble searching it out). Toss cooked ravioli in half a cup of passata. Carefully tile the beef in the casserole dish with the ravioli, overlapping thatch-style, and add a little more passata. Top with a cup of grated cheese - I used one of those three-cheese packs of parmesan, mozzarella and tasty. Vary the cheese variety as you wish. Place under a grill or back in the oven until cheese is melted and browning. Then top with a mixture of a quarter cup each of bacon chopped into very small pieces, and breadcrumbs; each fried separately and then combined, a kind of salty; British gremolata.
Serve with crusty bread, a green salad and red wine. Listen to the wind blowing outside, and John Hiatt inside. The Music is Hot.
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