In a frying pan add the olive oil and then add the beef and cook until browned on the outside.  Remove the beef from the pan, then add in the onion, celery and carrot.  Done be worried about the state of the pan, we shall deglaze all the flavour off it in a moment.  Just sauté the vegetables round the frying pan, until the onions are beginning to soften.  Then add in the mushroom ketchup, the Worcestershire sauce, the bay leaf and finally the hot beef stock, and cook in the pan on medium, until the pan is deglazed. Pop the beef back in the warm through.

Place in the slow cooker, and cook for between 3-4 hours on low depending on your make of slow cooker.  I don’t tend to add salt to my stew, as I use a good beef stock and also prefer to taste at the end.  I do like a good grinding of black pepper though.

If making pastry tops, during the last 45 minutes of cooking time, pre-heat your oven to 200 degrees centigrade.  Then take your puff pastry and roll to around 2cm thick.  Then cut your pastry sections out and place on a lined baking tray.  If you watch the video, you will see I put slight diagonal slashes along the top, then lightly brush with a little milk.  You then pop the into your preheated oven for around 25-30 Minutes.

Now back to the stew, and for the last 30 minutes of cooking, we want to make the stew look thick and glossy.  What I do, is take out around 4 tbsp of the hot stew cooking juices, and put it into a little bowl.  Then I add in the butter and mix until melted. Then I add in around 1 tbsp of cornflour.  Then take this mixture and mix it back into the stew.  The video shows this step nicely.  After about half an hour, you are left with a glossy gorgeous tasty stew and crisp pastry tops, to pop on top.  Usually eaten with a side of greens and mashed potato.