Growing up in South Africa, I took for granted that meat was meat. We seemed to always have good meat, when we had meat. Moving to England we found the quality of the meat… less than satisfactory. We’d often have a good meal – even in a restaurant – and comment that the meat was the weakest component of the meal.
It was only a few years later when I got our first organic meat box that I remembered what good meat tastes like – and more recently was introduced to Welsh Lamb and Welsh Beef, and it’s restored my faith in the yumness of meat.
To create this recipe we were sent a huge piece of Welsh Silverside Beef – probably the biggest I have ever cooked at one time and rather than roasting it, I wanted to do something to make it stretch over a few meals , so I seared the beef, and chopped it into cubes. This may sound like a waste of a perfect piece of meat, but it wasn’t. It was so worth it.
After mixing a few sauces and stock together – see the recipe – I left the meat to slow cook for 6 hours before adding mixed root vegetable.
We ate one round of this delicious Welsh Beef Hotpot immediately, and froze two more meals (two meals of three serves). The smaller portion was mixed with risotto rice to make a deliciously flavoured risotto, and the larger portion was put inside a giant Yorkshire pudding which makes a fantastic meal.
- 1kg Silverside Welsh beef
- 1 onion, chopped
- 1kg mixed root vegi
- 400ml red wine
- 100ml dark soy sauce
- 1 tbs brown sugar
- 500ml beef or veg stock
- 2 tbs corn flour
- Dash of oil
- Add oil to a frying pan, along with the onion and sear each side of the meat about 2 – 3 minutes per side. Chop a mixture of root veg into chunks
- Move it into a slowcooker
- In a different dish, stir together the red wine, soy sauce, sugar and stock and pour over the meat.
- Add the vegetables and cook on low heat for 6 hours
- Before serving, pour the stock into a saucepan. Put two tablespoons of corn flour and 4 tablespoons of stock together in a bowl and mix it together to make a paste. Add more tablespoons of stock till it forms a runny liquid and there are no lumps then pour it into the saucepan with the rest of the stock. Leave for about 10 minutes till it thickens up then add the meat back in
- Serve with rice, Yorkshire puddings or other sweet breads
Now, I’m saying use Nutella here, because it’s a name most people recognise, but you can of course substitute for other chocolate spread, including a home made one. 
This recipe is originally from 
I have made mayonnaise for many years, long before I bought my Thermomix, but in the Thermomix it is so, so easy… when it works. I’ve had as many flops as successes making mayo in the Thermomix, and when it flops, well, it flops big and is wasteful, so I really hate it.