Second Lunch Steak Pies

A recent thread on meat pies has inspired me to do a write-up of one of my favourite dishes. This is a Guinness Steak Pie although it's probably very different to the traditional version. I've looked at various recipes that are out there, and put a few of my own twists in to make this recipe. It is the hardest, longest, most back-breaking, and tiring recipes I do. It is also one of the tastiest things I've ever eaten. Since making this the first time I've never been able to enjoy a steak pie bought or made by someone else knowing just how good they can really be. 

Also doing a write-up will help me devise a recipe I can quickly pull up and maybe even improve on in the future. I'll be making this for the rest of my life. 

All the recipes out there tend to use cheaper fattier cuts of meat, I guess because that's the economically sensible thing to do. Since I want the pie to be the tastiest thing ever I've picked a reliable meat, the Rump steak. Luckily I found a 'market value' edition for this, but that isn't always possible. 

You want at least 600g of steak, I bought a 780g steak (before cutting the fat off). 

Cut the steak up into 1 inch cubes, and discard as many of the gross fatty bits as possible. 

Now you have to make a coating for the cubes. Some recipes seem to just put flour straight into the stew, but I've never liked the results I get doing it that way. 

The mixture is 2tbs flour, 1tsp salt, 1/4 tsp pepper, 1/4 tsp curry powder, 1/4 tsp mustard powder, and 1/4 tsp sweet paprika. 

Those last 3 ingredients I like to call 'the big three', they're often used in hot dogs in some combination depending on the cultural preference. There isn't much used here, but you could up the dose on one of those to get a stronger flavour in that direction. 

Put that in a bag with the meat and shake it up to get a good coating. My bags are really small so I had to divide it into two lots. 

Now you're ready to brown the meat. 

I pretty much just do a stir fry on them until all sides are just done. It takes me about 5 minutes per batch (too hard to do it all at once), but I only do it on medium-high heat because I've had incidents before where I burnt the meat, and my stove is piece of shit anyway. 

Set the meat aside for later. 

Now for the main part, making the stew. 

2 Onions, a carrot, 2 portabella mushrooms, 2 potatos, and some garlic. 

Chop it all up. 

There are a few other things you'll need for the stew. 

Firstly the Guinness. You only need one can, but I get two and use about one and a half, and then drink the remainder to get myself psyched! Well I was already drinking beer anyway while doing this. 

You also need 2 cups of beef stock, 2 tbs wostershister sauce, a bay leaf and about a 1/4 cup of herbs. For the herbs I've got 2 tbsp parsley, 2tbsp rosemary, and 2tbsp of thyme - that's almost a 1/4 cup of herbs with mostly a 'woody' flavour. I've done it with fresh parsley and a sprig of rosemary and that does work out better, but those aren't always available, and I have a bunch of these dry herbs I'm trying to use up. 

Melt a knob of butter over low-medium heat. Ideally you'd get a big saucepan, but this is the largest capacity thing I have and I'm used to working with it. 

Add the onions. 

After a few minutes the onion will be a bit softer, and then stir in the garlic, for about 30 seconds. 

Then add the mushrooms and start raising the heat as you follow through with the next few steps. 

Add the meat 

The 2 tbsp of worsterhizzle 

The Guinness 

The veggies and herbs 

And top it off with beef stock. 

If you have msg, go on chuck a nice big pinch of that in ftw. 

Stir it around and wait for it to boil 

Now it is boiling, you can turn the heat down a bit to simmer it. 

I turn it down to medium because I go off and do other stuff during this process, and don't want any surprises. I also put a lid on to slow down the evaporation to drag out the cooking to let the meat get very tender, to the point where it's falling apart. This has to be at least 2 hours, I did it for almost 4 hours! 

In the meantime shred a couple handfuls of cheese. 

When most of the water has vanished, you should be left with a seriously tasty concoction. Take it off the heat, and stir in the cheese. 

You can see in that last picture the mixture is not a liquid anymore, it is chunky and tender. 

You're pretty much done for today. Pack the stew away into the fridge overnight. 

The next day you'll need to make some mushy peas. Grab some frozen peas. 

And put about a cup or so of the peas into some salty water. I put quite a bit of salt in, have a little sip of it and if I go "mmmm salty!" then it is salty enough. 

Bring that to the boil, and then pretty much boil the water off. Takes about an hour on my stove. Make sure to turn the heat down once the water gets low or you'll fuck it up. 

Once most of the water is gone you can smush it a bit with a fork. 

And there's your mushy peas. 

Now to make the actual pies. 

You'll need shortcrust pastry for the pie cups and puff pastry for the lids. 

I've never been able to find pie tins before now, so I usually make mini-pies using a muffin tray. This is not very easy since given the diameter to depth ratio. 

But I recently spotted pie tins at the supermarket and stocked up on those. This is my first time using them. 

I prepare the muffin tray with some spray on oil to lube it up, dunno if it helps, but I once had an incident with muffins where they all stuck in there and I was dissapoint, so it might be a superstition for me. 

I use a cup much larger than the muffin tray holes as a guide, but go even bigger still as I've had problems with not being able to seal the lids on properly. 

Don't be too forceful with these things, when they're cold they have a tendency to be brittle and snap, so be gentle. If they do snap you can just fill in the cracks with some offcuts of pastry, just squish it in like play-doh. 

As they warm up they become more malleable and easy to shape. 

Cut a similar base for the pie tins. In hindsight the circle didn't need to be much bigger than the pie tin at all because of how shallow it is. 

Pie cups are ready to go 

Spoon some of the stew mixture into the cups. Don't pack it in too much, and don't fill them up too high. If you put in too much they will explode like a volcano and you will get meat juice all over the top and sides of your pie, not to mention making a general mess. Another incident I've had. 

Great, I didn't use up all my meat. No need to use it up, just pop it in the freezer/fridge as you can still server it by itself or use is a jaffle mix, etc... It is delicious. 

Spoon in some peas. I didn't make enough peas :( Didn't factor in the surface area of the shallow pies. 

Notice I'm also getting an egg ready there. Whisk the egg up with a fork, this will be used as a glue and to varnish the top of the pies. 

Put the egg glue around the rim so the lid will stick. 

And cut out the lids from the puff pastry, similar to how the base was done. 

Pop the lid on and stick it down well. 

You can cut the edges a bit to neaten it up / conceal your retardation. 

Score the top of the pie to minimise asplosions 

And then paint the lids with more egg. 

For the muffin sized ones, I paint the lids as it's easier. 

Stick the lids on, and trim them down, make sure they don't touch each other too as it becomes difficult to pull them out. 

Here are the mini-pies ready to bake 

Bake the pies for 40 minutes at 180-200 degrees celsius. May vary with your oven, mine heats from the top, derp. Let them cool before trying to take them out. Most came out easily by flipping the tray, some I had to coax out with a fork and lift them out. 

The larger ones took about 45 to puff properly all over. Let these cool a little while. 

Mmmm delicious. 

A slice of pie, ready to eat. 

Another shot of pie. 

Here are some ready to freeze. Take it to work, a minute and a half in the microwave with the lid loosened - the pastry won't be as crispy but the meat is even more delicious than before! 

Best pie ever, but like I said, it will spoil you for pies. You don't even need to put sauce on these pies, ruins it. You realise sauce is only invented to disguise how shit a normal pie is. Don't even bother ever going to an irish bar and buying a guinness pie - it will suck.