I am so exited to have my own kitchen at my house; for years while living in Bangkok I had none and had to use in room dining for ordering my dinner. Some will say “what is wrong with this?”. Nothing wrong but at times I would have loved to cook my own meal. Moving to Vietnam I made sure my house has fully equipped kitchen, well, at least it starts to look like a kitchen. I love to eat stew in red wine; anything cooked in red wine tastes so much better. For that I selected Australian beef, Mulwarra to be exact. In the local market I found some great Vietnamese radish and Garlic. This combination alone gets my juice going, red wine, garlic and radish! I started to sweat the roughly chopped onion and garlic in olive oil and fine French butter followed by a can of Italian tomato paste. Adding the carrots, radish and mushrooms followed by a bottle of Merlot. The beef I cut up into large chunks and seared them in a hot pan with a little of olive oil, black pepper and sea salt. Then I added the beef into my large cooking pot with the vegetable and red wine. Adding another bottle of Merlot and some more butter, black pepper and sea salt. Then on low heat I cooked the entire stew for about four hours, then I left it covered to cool until next morning. Early the next day I chopped some parsley and other herbs, seasoned all and cook it for another 30 minutes. Some penne pasta, baguette and stew gets me the whole day! I love it!