When I bought the piece of beef that need slow cooking I already had in mind the pot I was going to cook it in and what I was going to do to it. Only the week before I had reminded myself that at the back of a cupboard in the kitchen we have a small brown clay pot with a lid. It was just the right size to take the piece of beef.

The piece was taken from the shin and was about an inch thick and fve inches wide with a piece of bone with some pale creamy marrow going through it.

I layered the bottom of the pot with chopped onion and garlic and over that overlapped four sliced tomatoes. I seasoned it with oregano from the garden and plenty of salt and pepper. I laid the pice of beef on top and seasoned it some more with olive oil, red wine and more salt and pepper. It all fitted very snugly in the pot.

The idea was that as the onions and tomatoes cooked down the beef would sink into the pot and take on some of the lubrication given off.

Three hours later it more or less worked as planned. The onions and tomatoes had cooked down to a mush and the beef fell apart to the touch. I spooned out the beef and some of the tomatoes and put the rest through a sieve.

I ate it with fried potatoes and a good bottle of red wine.

If I cooked it again I would fry off the beef first but apart from that it was very good.