(Serves four)

2 tbsps olive oil
1 kg stewing beef, cut into three-centimetre cubes
2 onions, thickly sliced
1 tsp brown sugar
1½ tsps dried thyme
Salt and pepper
28 cl bottle Blue Label ale
Beef stock
220 g self-raising flour
Half tsp baking powder
100 g vegetable suet
1 tbsp parsley
1 tbsp flour mixed with 1 tbsp softened butter

Heat the oil in a large pan and brown the beef cubes, a few at a time, then transfer them to a plate. Add the onions and cook gently until they start to soften. Return the meat to the pan, add the brown sugar, a teaspoon of the thyme and season with salt and pepper.

Pour on the beer and enough beef stock to just cover the meat. Bring it to the boil, turn the heat down as low as possible, cover the pan and simmer for about one-and-a-half hours, until the meat is tender. It can now be cooled and left in the covered pan overnight.

Sift the flour, baking powder, half a teaspoon of salt and a shake of pepper into a bowl. Stir in the suet, parsley, the rest of the thyme and add enough water to make a fairly stiff dough.

Reheat the meat if necessary, and thicken the gravy by stirring in pieces of the flour and butter mixture. If there is a lot of gravy, spoon some off and keep it to serve separately.

To finish the pie on top of the stove, pat the dough out to a round roughly the size of the pan and sit it on top of the meat. Put the lid on and simmer gently for about 25 minutes until the dough has risen up and is cooked through.

Alternatively, for a crispier, more biscuity top, thicken the meat and tip it into a casserole or baking dish. Pat out the dough and put it on top, then bake at 220˚C in a preheated oven for about 20 minutes. Either way, cut the dough into wedges and serve with the meat and any reserved gravy.