This very tasty cabbage accompaniment goes tremendously well with beef, venison, oxtail and duck breast. The colour and flavours are powerful and well suited to full flavoured red meat - but then I have the feeling could be interesting with a meaty piece of monkfish too. Caraway seed is to be loved or hated and if you hate it you should just leave it out.

Red wine makes a great sauce with beef , and so long as you reduce it to a fraction of its former self, and you have meat residues to add it to, you’ll have no need to add stock. Naturally a few crisp, roast potatoes on the side wouldn’t go amiss...

Ingredients - serves 4-6

1.2 kg beef roast
1 large leek
olive oil
salt, pepper
1/2 bottle red wine, 1 shallot, 1 clove garlic

for the cabbage:
1 savoy cabbage
2 tsp caraway seeds
6 slices bacon, cut into lardons
25g butter
salt, pepper

Method

Preheat the oven to 180°C
Lightly oil the beef joint and season with salt and pepper. Brown on all sides in a roasting tray then lift and place the leek, trimmed and quartered lengthways, under the joint. The leek will caramelise in the meat juices and give more flavour and colour to your sauce. Transfer to the oven for about 1 hour (or cook to your own personal preference) then rest in a warm place for at least 10 minutes.

While the meat and potatoes are roasting, Trim the base and outer leaves from the savoy cabbage, halve and cut out the woody stalk, the slice very thinly (chiffonade) so that the it looks shredded. Blanch for a couple of minute in boiling water or until wilted then strain through a colander. Heat a saucepan and dry roast the caraway seeds for a minute or two and remove. Add the butter to the pan to melt then fry off the lardons briefly before returning the caraway seed to the pan together with the cabbage. Lower the heat and cover so that the cabbage can gently sweat and wilt further until cooked and tender. Keep warm.

Place the wine, shallot and garlic in a saucepan and reduce by half over a high heat. Add the reduced wine (discarding the shallot and garlic) to the meat pan to make the sauce, reduce further and adjust seasoning, discard the leek.

Carve thick slices of beef to serve with cabbage and roast potatoes; spoon over some sauce.