This is a fairly typical improvised recipe in our household; it happened to come out fairly well despite a certain amount of indecision during cooking (I couldn't decide initially whether I was doing a chilli or a curry), so it's preserved here for posterity. This will produce a casserole of beef in a sort of sticky chilli gravy.
- You're going to want rice with this, so put a large pan of water on to heat up. It'll be boiling nicely just as you want to put the rice on.
- Take a large casserole dish (ours is a beaten-up Le Crueset, about 14 inches diameter). Put 1kg of diced beef, three crushed cloves of garlic, and about 4 tablespoons of olive oil in the pan, mix well, and turn the heat up to maximum.
- While the beef is browning off, chop three large onions, one into as fine a dice as possible, one into thin strips, and one into largish chunks. Add to the pan.
- Wash, deseed and chop five green chillies and add to the pan.
- Add a fairly large quantity of Worcester sauce (say, half a glass), and about half as much soy sauce.
- Cook, stirring from time to time, until the beef is brown at all visible points, and the onions are just starting to brown.
- Add 4tsp sage, 3tsp hot paprika, 6tsp mustard seeds, lots of crushed black pepper, 3tsp dried crushed chilli, and crumble in three beef OXO cubes. Stir vigorously, and cook for about five minutes.
- Add a third of a bottle of white wine and three-quarters of a pint of water. Stir. Add some more worcester sauce for good measure.
- Cook for about another 15 minutes (the total cooking time will end up being something like 40 minutes). Once it's reduced down to the point where it's just starting to stick to the bottom, turn the heat down to minimum, wait for the rice to finish cooking, and serve.
This is one of those recipes that only improves upon being frozen and reheated, by the way. It goes well with noodles too...