Pour a generous amount of olive oil (or a mixture of butter and oil) into a sauté or braising pan. Add the onion, carrot and celery and sauté very gently until the vegetables are very soft and the onion translucent. Adding a pinch of salt and a spoonful of water helps the vegetables cook and avoids browning.

Now add the beef cubes and turn them with a wooden spoon or spatula so they are nicely coated with the vegetables and flavored oil. Season well with salt and pepper. Raise the heat a bit and let the beef brown very lightly, turning constantly to avoid burning.

Now add a splash of wine and let it evaporate. Then add enough broth to almost cover the meat and, if using, nestle your fresh herbs among the beef cubes. (NB: Most Italian recipes call for much less broth than this, but this way will give you abundant sauce for pouring your polenta: see Notes below.)

Cover, turn down the flame as low as it will go, and let the beef simmer very gently until fork-tender. Most recipes say an hour and a half, but I find two to three hours is more like it.

When the meat is tender, uncover and check the consistency of the sauce. If it is rather thin, you can either raise the heat and let it evaporate and/or add a spoonful of corn or potato starch, dissolved in an equal amount of water, to thicken the sauce. If, on the other hand, you want more sauce, then just add more broth or water and let it simmer, uncovered, for a few minutes. Taste and adjust for seasoning.

Remove the fresh herbs, if used, and serve your Italian beef stew over a nice, hot bed of freshly made polenta (see recipe here).