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Italian Beef recipe (if you're not already bored with me posting these)

So....I wanted to do an Italian style beef roast/slow cook type dish to have a nice tender piece of beef, but with a nice sauce and italian flavours.
Cooked it this Saturday and me, Stretchie and Squirrel Hunter cleaned our rather generous plates so thought I'd share it.

To feed 3-4

3lb piece of beef skirt or other cheap, thick cut.
1 onion, finely chopped
1 long stick of celery, finely chopped
1 large carrot, finely chopped
1 bottle deep coloured red wine like Chianti or similar
2 bay leaves (fresh or dry)
1 tsp dried thyme
1/2 tsp dried oregano
3 cloves garlic
generous knob of butter
1 tbsp olive oil

To prepare the meat, it's great if you can marinade it overnight, but if not, let it marinade as long as you can.

You don't need to worry about cutting too much fat off the beef. It'll all melt down and add flavour. Just finely chop the garlic cloves and rub into the meat with the dried thyme and oregano.
Put the piece of beef into a large bowl and pour over the wine until it covers the meat. Add the bay leaves, cover, put in the fridge and leave.
As said, leave as long as you can in the fridge.

When you're ready to cook, take the meat out of the fridge an hour in advance to get to room temperature.

Heat the butter and a little oil in a large deep pan. Take the meat out if the marinade, let the excess wine drip off, then put it in the butter to brown on all sides.

When its browned, take it out, add the rest of the olive oil and put the chopped onion, celery and carrot in to soften and brown a little over a moderate heat. It should take a good five-10 mins to get the veg to soften and colour slightly and add a little extra oil if you need to. Stir regularly.

Add the meat back to the pan and add the marinade. I saw a recipe on tv that inspired this, but the chef strained the marinade and I don't see the point, the bay leaves will be more effective when heated and why bother...just a pointless extra thing to wash up!
Now that you have everything in the pan, bring it to the boil, then turn down to simmer. Cover and simmer for at least 2 hours, turning the meat over every 30 minutes.

15 minutes before serving, take the meat out, raise the heat a little and reduce the sauce while the meat rests. If you want the sauce to be a little thicker, you can add a little paste of butter and flour to thicken it or just use thickening granules. I also picked some fresh thyme and oregano out of the garden and threw the leaves in at this stage, but you could also use basil if you have it.

I served this with a simple risotto, if anyone wants a recipe for risottos, just ask.

When you're ready to serve, slice the beef, plate it up with the risotto and spoon the sauce over the beef. You can also serve this with polenta, mashed potato, vegetables etc...just not pasta as it's the wrong type of sauce for that.

Enjoy!!!

Oh...and don't eat the bay leaves.....lol. The meat will still be carveable (just) but will also still be really tender and juicy so you could cut it with your fork if you wanted to!