Pastéis de nata

My breakfast this morning.

I didn't each much meat in the Middle East, but what did eat was truly memorable. Veal from the Golan heights which tasted is if it had a better life than I had. For the spicing alone I rate very highly an amazing lamb croquetta eaten in a cafe garden outside Jericho.

I had the urge to eat red meat when I came back, plus a lot of leftover winter veg to deal with. So I bought some cheap beef shin from the butcher yesterday and started off a stew. 

The shin takes around 5 hours to cook, so I started last night by searing it and putting it in a stew pot with onions, carrots, peppers, black pepper, Worcestershire sauce and a stock cube.

It had two hours cooking before bed.

After breakfast I gave the stew a taste, it was flat and charmless, so I added sweet paprika, star anise, half a bottle of wine, a dollop of honey and popped it in the oven again.

After a further three hours it tasted amazing.