Chillier evenings are perfect for cosying up inside with a warming plate of food that is going to taste good and look good.

Instead of spending ages cooking a dish, the slow cooker is the perfect kitchen accessory to do all the hard work for you.

Once the meat and vegetables are chopped, it's as easy as putting all the ingredients in the slow cooker to release all those delicious flavours over time.

Gordon Ramsay shared his go-to ingredients to make the most tasty beef stew recipe, but there's the option of adding your favourite veggies too.

To tuck into deliciously tender beef and to enjoy a hot plate alongside creamy mash, here's the recipe.

Beef stew

Ingredients

• One onion, chopped
• Two celery sticks, finely chopped
• Two tbsp rapeseed oil
• Three carrots, halved and cut into chunks
• Two bay leaves
• Half a pack of thyme
• Two tbsp tomato purée
• Two tbsp Worcestershire sauce
• Two beef stock cubes
• 900g beef for braising such as skirt, diced
• Two tsp cornflour
• Half a small bunch of parsley, chopped
• Buttery mash, to serve

Method

Fry the onion and celery in one tablespoon of oil over a low heat until they start to soften – about five minutes.

Add the carrots, bay and thyme, fry for two minutes, stir in the purée and Worcestershire sauce, add 600ml of boiling water, stir and tip everything into a slow cooker. Crumble over the stock cubes and stir, then season with pepper.

Fry the beef in the remaining oil in batches until it is well browned, then tip each batch into the slow cooker. Cook on low for eight to 10 hours, or on high for four hours.

Gravy

To thicken the gravy, mix the cornflour with a splash of cold water to make a paste, then stir in two tablespoons of the liquid from the slow cooker.

Tip back into the slow cooker, stir and cook for a further 30 minutes on high. Stir in the parsley and season. Serve with mash. Leave to cool before freezing.

Creamy mash

Make the most buttery creamy mash by mashing cooked potatoes with butter and cream. Do keep mashing until the potatoes are free from any lumps and is beautifully soft to eat.