Beef stew redux

I think I like this way of doing beef stew. It is aromatic and beefy, with a rich, but not cloying sauce. So I'm documenting here.

The critical success factors are:
A. Use a tablespoon of Marmite for the umami factor. The stew will not obviously taste of the marmite - it just enhances the savoriness. Kudos to seriouseats.com.

B. Top up with only just slightly covering the meat with stock. Then bake in 100C oven for the 3 hours, topping up with water as necessary. This will reduce the stock and make it rich.

Rough Steps:
1. About 1kg of beef stew meat. Cut into cubes and brown as usual. Preheat oven to 100C.

2. Take the meat out and saute the mirepoix (celery, onions, carrots) until fragrant. Scrape the fond off the sides of the pot.

3. Add sliced garlic and one entire small can of tomato paste and one heaping tablespoon of marmite. Stir and saute for a few minutes more.

4. Add the meat back in. Pour chicken stock and wine mix (2/3 wine, 1/3 stock) until it just covers the meat plus a bit more. Add thyme/bay leaf and one or two more bulbs of whole garlic. Bring to a vigorous boil

5. In my case, I poured the mix into a tray and then put it into the oven, instead of just putting the pot into the oven. This may or may not be necessary - in any case, we want to reduce the stock.

6. Wait 3 hours.