Beef Casserole serves 6
2 packs shin of beef (around 1-1.5 kg)
2 large carrots (250g)
celery (125g - around 1/3 to 1/2 a head of celery)
shallots (250g - 4-6 banana/echallion shallots)
2-3 large cloves of garlic, finely chopped (or use a garlic crusher)
Beef stock cube
Dried oregano, chilli flakes (optional), salt and black pepper)
oil for frying
Trim the meat and cut into large-ish cubes
In a large frying pan, heat the oil and fry the meat until browned (do this in small batches, so that you are actually frying - if you put too much in at once, the temperature will drop and you end up steaming rather than frying it)
Season each batch lightly with salt and pepper
As each batch is browned, transfer it into a casserole dish (or into your slow cooker if you prefer)
Peel and slice the carrots and shallots, slice the celery. Peel and chop the garlic.
Using the same pan that you fried the meat in, fry the vegetables until they are softened a little (you may need to add a bit more oil). Season, and add the garlic, herbs/chilli - quantities to taste, but go sparingly with the chilli - the idea is to add a little extra depth to the flavour, not to make this hot. Cook for another minute or so.
Once the veg is soft, transfer it to the casserole dish and stir into the meat
The bottom of your frying pan will now be nice and brown. Add around a pint of water to the pan and, on the heat, stir it so that you scrape up all the bits from the bottom. Add the stock cube and stir till it's dissolved. Then add this to the casserole dish. You want a reasonable amount of liquid in this, so add more water if you need to.
Transfer the dish to the oven, where you need to cook this in a medium oven for around 2-3 hours. Longer, slower cooking is fine. Check it after an hour or so, and stir everything round a little. If there's still a lot of liquid, leave the lid off the for last half an hour or so, until it's reduced to the quantity you like.
This works really well in the slow cooker too. (If you have a pressure cooker, this will need around 10-12 minutes on high pressure, and then cooked a bit longer to reduce the liquid)
These quantities come to 30g carbs for the whole thing, so if you make 6 portions, each will be 5g carbs per person.
You can use this as the basis for different versions - e.g. you could add a tin of tomatoes, or you could add a glass or so of red wine, etc. Obviously these all add carbs, which you would need to include.