The Blog of Pie

Hi folks, long time reader, first time contributor.

Here is my steak and Guinness pie that i did makes.

From the top, with MOO

With potatoes. I took the nice centre piece of pastry that rose around the support.

I’m not much of a one for ingredient listing, so bear with me:

Ingredients
1 kg of stewing beef cubed
4 carrots
1 onion
half a jar of pickled onions
Puff pastry
Dried Thyme
500ml Guinness
1 tin of tomatoes
Lashings of salt and pepper
A largish pinch of sugar (the Guinness and tomatoes are pretty bitter)
2 tablespoons of flour

I had none but would have added:
1 stick of celery
Tablespoon of tomato paste

Method
Put the flour on a plate and season generously.
Coat the stewing beef in the flour.
Brown the beef in the pan in batches. Don’t overcrowd.
When the beef is done top up the oil and fry the onions, chopped into largish moons, briefly.
Add the carrots chopped into largish chunks (and celery if using).
Add in any flour that didn’t get stuck to the beef earlier along with a little dried thyme.
Stir around for about a minute.
Add the beef back in along with any juices that collected while it was resting.
Add the can of Guinness and the tin of tomatoes (and tomato puree).
Bring to the boil and then reduce to a low simmer for around 80-90 mins.
add the drained, washed pickled onions and return to the simmer for around 30 more mins.
Put the puff pastry on top, supporting the middle.
Cook in the oven for around 30 mins.

EAT.

so, that was it. it was bloody delicious. the one thing that worried me was the pastry which sunk almost immediately in the heat, 5 minutes later it had risen gloriously though, so all was well. The pickled onions were something i picked up off TV. they really brought a nice different flavour when bit into \o/

dib