Generally when pasta sauces involve meat, it is normally minced meat or finely ground meat. However, last night I made a sort of stew to use up some lovely braising beef from the Yorkshire butchers, and to satisfy a pasta craving I had been nursing for a couple of days, thought I would serve it with pasta. I finely shredded the large chunks of beef so they'd stick more easily to the pasta, and the pasta became coated in the lovely braising liquid, containing cinnamon, cloves and coriander. I suppose you could serve it with couscous or mash, or even rice, but there is something very satisfying about the combination of pasta and aromatic shreds of beef and red peppers. Pappardelle is, I think, the best choice of pasta here because it's large enough for the sauce to cling to all the strands, but rigatoni might work well too, or those giant pasta shells you can get (I imagine the sauce would fill up the shells nicely once given a good stir).

Recipe (to serve 4-5): finely slice about 5 onions and saute them until soft in a pan. Remove and set aside. Add two sliced red peppers and saute until soft. Remove to a separate plate. Add 900g stewing beef and brown in batches. Return all the beef to the pan and add the onions, 4 cloves, a cinnamon stick, a tsp ground coriander and a tsp ground black pepper plus a generous grinding of salt. Pour over 900ml beef stock and bring to the boil. Cover, turn the heat down and simmer for a couple of hours. After this time, remove the lid and reduce until the liquid has a sauce-like consistency (I used some arrowroot to thicken it more). While doing this, remove the beef chunks from the pan and, using two forks, finely shred the meat before returning to the pan. Return the red peppers to the pan until they have softened. Serve with pasta.