We just love comfort food in winter and a hearty beef pie ranks up with the best of ’em. Here Elgin resident and restauranteur Jay Haupt shares his recipe for rustic beef and ale pie.
Rustic Beef and Ale Pie
Makes 4 pies
Ingredients
- 2 kg stewing beef
- 500 g pickling onions
- 1 large sprig of fresh thyme
- 2 cloves garlic
- 1 bay leaf
- 1 tsp fresh chilli
- 1 tsp paprika
- 1 cup stoneground flour
- 3 tbp sunflower oil
- Birkenhead Chocolate Stout (300ml)
- Puff pastry
- 1 egg
- Salt and pepper
Cooking instructions
Heat the sunflower oil in a heavy-based pot. Dust the pieces of raw stewing beef with flour and brown the meat in the heated pot. Do this in batches, not all at once, adding more oil for cooking as necessary.
Remove the meat and set aside, then add whole peeled onions and brown them all over. Turn down the heat to medium. Add a bay leaf, chopped chilli, paprika, garlic, thyme and salt and pepper to taste. Fry gently for a few minutes, then add the meat back in and slowly pour in the chocolate stout.
Simmer on a low heat for 1.5 hours with the lid off. In the last 15 minutes of cooking time, pre-heat the oven to 1800C and roll out your puff pastry. You can make your own pastry or buy it from the shops to save time. Put the pie mixture into a large oven-proof pie dish or four individual pie pots. Spoon in the mixture and cover the dish with the pastry ‘lid’ – you can add little pinches to the edges to make it look tidy. Take a beaten egg and give the pastry an egg bath by brushing over the top of the pastry. Prick a few holes in the top of the pastry with a fork, then bake for 20 to 30 minutes at 1800C untill golden brown.
Serve with a crisp green garden salad topped with finely sliced rings of red onion.
