Recipe of the week (and the whole year!)

This is what happens if you leave me in the cookbook section of Waterstones... I spent a lovely half hour going through all the Spanish recipe books and used a number of recipes to invent my own Spanish 'stew'. It's pretty cold out at the moment and I fancied some comfort food. I have to say, without blowing my own trumpet (I would if I could ho ho!), this was one of the best meals I've ever eaten in my own home. It was bloody lovely. Please try it, you won't be disappointed. I'm now off to e-mail the recipe to El Bulli...

You'll need (for 2 people):

500g shin of beef, cubed
2 x tablespoons of flour
2 x cooking chorizo sausages (we used one spicy and one mild from a deli), sliced into 1cm slices
1 x onion, finely diced
1 x carrot, finely diced
1 x stick of celery, finely diced
3 x garlic cloves, kept whole with skin on
2 x bay leaves
100ml sherry
Enough good red wine to cover (we used just over half a bottle of Merlot)
4 x potatoes, halved
Olive oil
Salt and pepper
Fresh parsley to serve

1. Preheat oven to 160c/300f/Gas 3 - can you get 2.5??
2. Put your flour in a bowl and season well with salt and pepper. 
3. Put your cubed beef in the flour to coat
4. Get your oil as hot as possible and fry off your beef - make sure you pat off any excess flour. Just fry the beef enough to brown then remove onto a plate
5. In the same oil (you may need a little more), gently sweat off your onion, carrots, celery, garlic and bay leaves for about a minute
6. Throw in your sausage and gently cook off until the veg has softened. The oil from the sausage should seep out and give everything a lovely orangey colour.
7. Stir in your beef
8. Pour in the sherry and reduce by half
9. Pour in enough wine to just cover everything
10. Bring to boil and then cover with a lid and put in oven. Cook for 90 minutes
11. After 90 minutes, put in your potatoes. You may need a little bit of water or more wine to cover. Cook for another 90 minutes
12. Chop your parsley and throw in at the last minute. Serve in bowls and eat with crusty bread (which we forgot!) and a good bottle of Rioja