This is not a recipe for Southern Spain in June, it is simply far too hot, but I do enjoy the odd meal of my favourite “comfort food”, which is usually similar to the dinners cooked by my mother.

50 grams of self raising flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
A little freshly ground black pepper
25 grams of vegetable suet
1 tsp of mixed dried herbs (I prefer plain dumplings, so this is optional)
Very cold water

Sift the flour, baking powder and black pepper into a baking large bowl, add the suet and dried herbs, mix
Add sufficient water to form a firm dough - around 2 tbsp
Form the dough into 8 balls and place on the top of the stew
Cover and place in a preheated oven set to 160 degrees Celsius for 20 minutes

2 tbsp each of olive oil and butter
500 grams of stewing steak cut into bite size pieces (beef, I like it made with lamb also, but different herbs)
2 tbsp of plain flour
100 grams each of celery, carrot (diced), red onion (chopped) and leek (sliced) and white turnip (diced)
Garlic
10 shallots, whole or halved if large
10 small potatoes, peeled and halved
150 ml of good quality red wine (suitable for drinking, not plonk - though I like Newcastle Brown Ale)
500 ml of stock (probably beef, but I like vegetable stock best)
1 bay leaf, fresh herbs (parsley and thyme) in a muslin bag
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

The method is quite easy, prepare all the ingredients, sweat the veggies, brown the meat, add the flour and stir, add all the other ingredients, cover and place either in a slow oven or on the hob, stirring if cooked on the hob to make sure it doesn´t stock, add the dumplings and cook as above. Remove muslin bag before serving

Alternatively, transfer to a slow cooker and leave until you come home from work, it will be ready the meat tender and so on, but you will still have to cook the dumpling, in this case I cook them in a stock on the hob, that´s how my Mum did it and when comfort food is in order, that is how I still do it, ie I don´t bake them in the oven!