There's something quite comforting about sitting down to a homemade steak and stout pie.
It's a Winter dish if there ever was one. With a predicted snow fall coming in this evening, I've decided to make one tonight for my family.
I'll add more photos here soon when I get around to doing it.
These photographs were taken about a month ago when I made the same dish for a group of friends.
I served them in individual pots and of course a made a few extra for the those with big appetites.
This steak and stout pie recipe normally serves six but I can assure you the four of us polished them off every last bit that evening.
How to get this steak and stout pie recipe just right...
When it comes to puff pastry, I no longer make my own.
There's really no point as the pastry available at our local farmers market and most supermarkets for that matter works just fine.
The key to success with this recipe is in finding the best quality ingredients. Do that and you really can't go wrong. Steak and stout pie takes some time to make but it's an easy process. Enjoy!
Recipe
Steak and Stout Pie
Ingredients
- 20g dried porcini mushrooms – soaked for about 20 minutes in hot water and rinsed. Retain the mushroom stock
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 1kg beef rump cut into small pieces
- 1 ox kindey - cut into small pieces (optional but very tasty in the broth)
- 1 large onion - roughly chopped
- 20 baby onions
- 2 carrots – finely choppped
- 2 teaspoons sugar
- 4 tablespoons plain white flour
- 300ml stout
- 400ml beef or veal stock
- small bunch each thyme, bay leaf, rosemary and parsley - tied together
- 250g smoked bacon lardons
- 1 egg yolk - beaten
- 1 packet of puff pastry
Instructions
- Heat the oil in a large casserole dish and brown the beef lardons and kidney (if using). You may need to do this in batches. Remove the meat from the casserole dish and set aside.
- Add the chopped onion, baby whole onions and the carrots to the pan and fry over medium heat until the onions are soft and lightly browned.
- Meanwhile take your porcini mushrooms from the water they have been soaking in and cut them into small pieces.
- Add the soaked mushrooms to the pan and sizzle for about 30 seconds before adding the sugar and plain flour.
- Stir continuously until the flour turns a light brown.
- Return the meat and any juices to the pan and stir it all up to combine.
- Pour in the beer, stock and porcini soaking liquid. Be careful not to pour in any of the dirt that is often left behind from the porcini mushrooms.
- Season with salt and pepper and then add the herbs. Bring back to a simmer.
- Cover the casserole and simmer over medium heat for about two hours until the meat is pull apart tender.
- The stew part of your steak and ale pie is ready. This can be kept in the fridge for two days if you’re working ahead. In fact it improves the flavour.
- When you are ready to make your pie, bring the stew back up to a simmer. I like to make one large pie for the family but when I’m cooking for friends, I usually give everyone their own individual pies as I did in the photograph.
- I’ll leave that one up to you.
- Preheat your oven to 200c (400f)
- Grease your cooking dish (or small dishes) with the butter.
- Roll out your puff pasty in the shape of your dish/dishes and cover.
- Brush the pastry with the egg yolk. Trim any rough edges. You can use these trimming to make decorations but I tend to through them to my pastry loving dog.
- Place the dish/dishes on a baking tray and place in the oven for about 45 minutes until the pastry is golden and puffed up.
- Remove from the oven and allow to settle for about ten minutes before serving.
