Beef and Ale Pie

Well last week I told you to prepare for the impending doom that is winter by getting some short crust pastry made. This week I’m using it to finish off a beef and ale stew / casserole.  Now the trick with any stew is to use a meat that is high in intramuscular fat – the fat that is within a muscle not the fat around it.  Think of a rump steak - rump has a large fat rind and this is intermuscular fat, but within the red meat white seams of fat should be present this is often called marbling. Without good marbling the meat will be dry in the mouth and very unpleasant. Marbled meat gives a softer less dense mouth feel which in turn makes us think the meat is juicy.   However marbling is only half the story, for stews we use cuts of meat that are high in fat and that do plenty of work, i.e bits of cow that support the animal and move it about. These cuts therefore are also high in collagen which gives the muscle tissue strength so it doesn’t break /tear so easily. However collagen takes either a very high temperature to cook or a very long time; this is why stews are left for a few hours simmering away before the meat is tender. I will talk about meat tenderness in more depth another time ‘coz it’s time to make some pie*.

*I am aware I only put a pastry top on and this probably doesn’t count as a “real” pie of any true pie aficionado, but I don’t like being overwhelmed with pastry when I have a very creamy mash as a side.

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  What you need for a big deep pie (4-6 people):

  0.8 - 1 kg of diced shin of beef 

  2 medium onions 

  A big handful of field / chestnut mushrooms

  A large carrot

  Two sticks of celery 

  Half a tin of chopped tomatoes (200 g)

  3-4 big fat cloves of garlic 

  A nice beer / stout  (preferably something dark)

  A handful of parsley with stalks

  3 tbsp of honey

  ¼ pint of beef stock

  How to make it:

  1. Coarsely chop the onions into slices. Snap the celery and peel the chewy fibres off (image III). Now coarsely chop the celery, onion and garlic and put in a large frying pan along with some chopped mushrooms. Fry until to the onions begin to brown (20 minutes) on a moderate heat.
  2. While the veg is sweating down prep the meat. Start by trimming off any excess fat hanging off of the meat. Then toss the meat in seasoned flour and in a separate frying pan fry off the beef so it becomes golden in colour. To ensure that the colour is golden fry at a very hot temperature and fry the meat in stages - do not overcrowd the pan, as frying too much meat at once lowers the temperature of the pan and the meat doesn’t fry it just sweats drawing out water. 
  3. Once fried add in a ¼ of your beer to the pan you fried the beef off in scrapping the bottom of the pan to get off all the residual meat off - this is important for a decent tasting stew. Add the meat infused beer to the onion and veg mix along with the fried of pieces of beef. Mix everything thoroughly with the beef stock. -If the beer you’re using is particularly bitter you could always add some honey to the story to sweeten things up. 
  4. Cover with a lid and simmer on the stove for 2-3 hours, keeping an eye on the water level in the stew – if it becomes too dry then add some stock / water. 
  5. You want to cook the meat until it is tender and you should be able to pull the meat apart with relative ease as shown within image X
  6. Once cooked allow the stew to cool and transfer it to a pie dish. Coarsely chop up the parsley (including the stalks) and mix into the stew. 
  7. Now it’s the time to roll out you pastry so it will fit your pie dish and place it on top. You can trim up the pastry so it’s pretty looking but I’m not too fussed - using the off cuts of short crust I made some leaves. Egg / milk wash the pastry - this gives the pie a golden colour once cooked. Pierce a hole in the centre to allow steam to exit the pie when hot. Throw it in the oven at 180 ^oC for 30-40 minutes until the crust is golden and the pie is piping hot.