I have often seen interviews in the news media with adults - especially working mums - who say they have no time to cook. The result is the ready meal or takeaway which is probably not the healthiest way to eat. Some writers advocate real fast food which is food that can be cooked from scratch very rapidly. However if time is short, some dishes can by lazy ones where little preparation is involved but sometimes long cooking times.

For many years Mrs O has done a simple, cost effective and tasty braised beef. I had a go at this recently and found relatively cheap stewing steak at Sainsburys.

 stewing steak

As would be expected with a cheaper cut it had plenty of connective tissue - it would have been very tough to eat if say fried or grilled. Compared with other beef on offer in the same supermarket it was cheaper at £4.98/kg compared with:
- £7.93/kg for braising steak
- £8.99/kg for silverside
- £9.18/kg for stir fry beef
- £11.48/kg for rump steak
- £15.47/kg for sirloin steak.

We ended up with a cost effective meal.

Serves 4

Ingredients

50 g butter
600g stewing steak (or other cheap cut)
1 tbsp paprika
1 tbsp worcestershire sauce
1 dsp corn flour
a few dollups of tomato ketchup
salt & pepper

Method

1. Take a frying pan (with a lid) and melt the butter
2. Meanwhile season the stewing steak with salt, pepper and paprika
3. Lightly coat the beef with tomato ketchup

 browned beef

4. Turn up the heat on the frying pan and brown the beef on both sides
5. After browning turn down the heat to a simmer and add boiling water at least halfway up the meat and cover with lid
6. Every 45 minutes turn the meat and top up the liquid with more boiling water if it is running low

 braised beef

7.  After about 3 hours the meat should be very tender and has probably broken up somewhat. The meat should be sitting in a reddish sauce.
8. Remove the meat from the frying pan and leave to rest
9. Mix the cornflour with a little boiling water and add to the sauce. Add more water to thin the sauce to taste.
10. Serve meat and sauce.

Accompanying Veg

This dish goes well with boiled or mashed potatoes and most boiled vegetables. We had basic white boiled potatoes at 30p/kg and a jar or Lidl pickled red cabbage at 69 p. Meat cost £2.99 so the whole meal came to a princely fiver!