Beef and Ale Stew with Herb Dumplings

Heat the oven to 160C/325F.

Pat the beef dry on every side with kitchen paper.

Season the pieces all over with the 6g of fine salt.

Heat the oil in a heavy casserole over medium-high heat until it shimmers and runs thin across the base.

Brown the beef in three batches, leaving a couple of centimetres of bare metal around every piece, 3-4 minutes a side, until each one has a deep crust and lifts off the base without tearing.

Crowd the pan and none of this works: the steam cannot escape, the metal drops below browning temperature and the beef goes grey and leaks its juice instead of crusting, which is set out at length in the slow-braised beef shin in this collection.

Move each batch to a plate as it browns.

Turn the heat to medium and add the onions, carrots and celery to the same pan.

Cook for 8-10 minutes, stirring, until the onions have softened and gone translucent at the edges.

Stir in the garlic and cook for 1 minute, until it smells sweet.

Add the tomato puree and cook for 2 minutes, stirring constantly, until it darkens from bright red to brick.

Scatter the 25g of plain flour over the vegetables.

Stir for 1-2 minutes, until no white streaks are left and the pan looks pasty. The flour has to cook in the fat now; stirred into the liquid later it seizes into lumps and tastes raw in the finished sauce.

Pour in the ale a third at a time, stirring each addition smooth before the next goes in.

Scrape the base of the pan clean with a wooden spoon while it bubbles.

Simmer for 5 minutes, until the foam has subsided and the smell of raw beer has gone.

Return the beef and any juice on the plate to the pan.

Pour in the hot stock, which should come about two-thirds of the way up the meat rather than covering it.

Stir in the Worcestershire sauce and the brown sugar, which stands against the bitterness the hops leave behind as the ale reduces.

Tuck in the bay leaves and the 4 whole thyme sprigs.

Bring it to a bare simmer, where a bubble breaks somewhere on the surface every second or two.

Cover with a tight lid and cook in the oven for 2 to 2.5 hours.

Test with a spoon rather than a clock: a piece pressed against the side of the pan should crush without resistance while still holding its shape.

Rub the self-raising flour, the suet, the stripped thyme leaves, the finely chopped half of the parsley and the 3g of fine salt together in a bowl with your fingertips.

Stir in the cold water with a knife until the mixture just comes together as a rough, lumpy dough.

Stop mixing the moment no dry flour is left. Worked smooth, the dough turns elastic and the dumplings steam into heavy rubber balls instead of opening up.

Divide the dough into 8 and roll each piece into a loose ball with light hands.

Take the pot out of the oven and season the stew with the ground peppercorns.

Sit the dumplings on the surface of the stew, well spaced, and press each one down until it is half submerged. They double in size, so they need the room.

Cover the pot and return it to the oven for 25 minutes.

Leave the lid on for that whole stretch. The dumplings cook in trapped steam, and every lift of the lid lets it out and stops them rising.

Take the lid off and cook for a further 10 minutes, until the tops are browned and a skewer pushed into the middle of one comes out clean.

Note that no internal temperature applies to the beef by this point. Two and a half hours at a simmer takes it far past any safety threshold, and the only question left is texture.

Taste the sauce and correct the salt, bearing in mind how the stock was seasoned.

Scatter over the rest of the parsley.

Serve straight away in shallow bowls, while the dumplings are still light.