Peppered braised steak

This weekend I bought a beef freezer pack from Hopcott's which included ground beef, pot roasts and blade steaks.  I also bought myself a beautiful new cast iron cooking pot the perfect size and shape for braising steaks.  So Sunday night it had to be braised steak in my beautiful new olive green pot.

I saw this idea on Delia Smith's website of braising a steak with the flavours of peppercorn steak and thought it was a good idea especially as my Father loves black pepper.

This fed 6 (2 with very large appetites)

• 2 tablespoons of whole black peppercorns
• 1/4 cup of flour
• salt 
• 4 large braising steaks
• 2 tablespoons of olive oil
• 1 onion chopped
• 1 garlic clove sliced
• 1/4 bottle of red wine
• 2 cups of beef stock
• 2 bay leaves
• Sprig of thyme

Pummel the black peppercorns in a pestle and mortar or grind very coarsely.

Mix the ground pepper with the salt and flour, then place on a large plate and coat the steaks.

Heat the olive oil in a large frying pan or cast iron pot and then brown the steaks, I did this in two batches as I had a lot of beef.

Remove the steak and add the onion and garlic and cook until transparent and just starting to go golden.

I used red onion, because that was all I had, but I would normally have just used a yellow onion.  Add the wine and stock.

stir all the brown bits in and then add the steak back.

Add the bay leaves (from my very small bay tree on the deck) and the sprig of thyme.  Cover and place in a 300 oven for about 3 hours, until the beef is falling apart.  

Remove the steak again and simmer down the juices until they are concentrated and pour over the steak.  This was wonderful, my family devoured it and though I was really hoping for leftovers I was sadly disappointed.

But look how beautiful my new dish is.

I am sure that it will inspire many dishes this winter.