Beef and Ale Pie

Another favorite traditional English dish which is essentially an amazing slow cooked beef stew with a pie crust topping. It's amazing and full of flavor. The recipe calls for using short crust pastry, but I think it would be even better with a puff pastry topping and made into smaller individual pies. It is great served with buttery baby new potatoes or mashed potatoes and garden peas.

Ingredients:

Pastry:

300 g/10 oz rich short crust pastry

1 beaten egg to glaze

Filling:

25 g/1 0z/3 Tblsp flour

900 g/ 1 3/4 lbs chuck steak cut into 1" cubes

2 carrots, cubed in 1" chunks

20 g/ 1 Tbsp butter

1 Tbsp oil

2 large onions, thinly sliced

2 tsp Worchestershire sauce

2 tsp tomato puree

500 ml/17 oz Guinness stout

300 ml/1 cup hot beef stock

2 tsp sugar

salt and pepper

Method:

Mix flour, salt and pepper in bowl. Toss meat in flour and coat well.

Heat butter and oil until melted. Add meat in small batches and brown quickly then remove with slotted spoon. Set aside.

Add onion and carrot and fry gently for 2 minutes.

Then return meat with Worchestershire sauce, tomato, ale, stock and sugar. Grind in plenty of black pepper and a little salt.

Stir well and bring to a boil. Cover and simmer slowly for 2 hours until meat is tender and sauce is thick. Remove from heat and let cool in 2 1/2 pt deep pie dish. Preheat oven to 400 F / 200 C.

Roll out pastry 1/8" thick. Cut 3/4" strip and place around rim after brushing rim with water. Press down.

Cut out remaining pastry 1" larger than dish. (My stewing pot lid is the right size.)

With pie funnel in the center of the filling, place pastry lid over top and press down edges to seal. Trim excess pastry and crimp edges with fork or between thumb and forefingers. Brush top with egg. Make hole in center to reveal pie funnel (my pie dish was a bit shallow so it stuck out a lot). Bake 30-35 minutes.