Day 141: Beef pie

Ok, when you look at the picture of my Beef pie and then compare it with the picture of Rachel’s beef pie, I think it’s fair to say that any creativity I possessed as a child has been well and truly spent over the years. Seriously, every time I look at my picture, it reminds me of the river beside my parents' house after a severe flood. I had it in my head for quite a while to make this one and, at long last, I had the time this weekend to do it. If you look at the recipe, you’ll appreciate the importance of time as it said it required 20 minutes to cook and 2¾ hours to cook. Once I factored in that it would take me probably twice the time to prepare everything, I knew I needed quite a bit of time for this one. So, that said, onto the recipe…

 

Rachel's lovely looking beef pie

  My not-so-lovely-looking beef pie

Like so many recipes, I insist of preparing everything first before anything gets near heat. Once I had all the ingredients prepared, I added olive oil to my large casserole dish and let it heat. Once hot, I added seasoned stewing beef and let it fry for about 4 minutes until each piece had browned. I then added a small bit of flour and let it cook for a further minute. Next, it was the turn of the vegetables – chopped carrot, celery, onion, leeks and sliced garlic along with some tomato purée. They cooked for just over 5 minutes until they softened. Then, I added red wine, red wine vinegar, freshly cut orange peel, a bay leaf, a sprig of rosemary and 300ml of water. I seasoned the lot, brought them to the boil and covered with a lid. I popped the dish into the oven for 2¼ hours and then took it out of the oven. It was time then to sort out the pastry and, thank goodness, I had bought ready rolled puff pastry so all I had to do was flour my worktop and trim it. The recipe said to then ‘scallop’ it and the cookbook did include eight separate photos for the pastry part (which was great) but, I can safely say that, until today, I had never heard of ‘scalloping’ pastry. I think the purpose of scalloping the pastry is part decoration but more so to let the steam from beef mixture escape. I think. Well, I did try as best I could but pastry lid was not good; far from good. It looked a bit ridiculous if I’m really honest. After I put the pastry lid on, I made the pastry leaves (which I actually did a good job of) and brushed the lot with a beaten egg. And as if my pastry wasn’t bad enough, for some strange, strange reason, I put the lid on the dish again before putting it back in the oven!!! I only wish I was joking! I was cleaning up and thought “Oh, I’ll put the lid in the dishwasher now. Hang on, where’s the lid? Em, uh oh”!. Well, that’s the milder version of the conversation in my head. Yes, I had to grab the oven gloves and thankfully this time, my brain did engage and put on the gloves before grabbing the lid. Unfortunately, by that time, the gravy part of the beef had started to drown the pastry so it looked like a brown tide coming in on a sandy beach. I had a right bit of fixing to do to sort that out but, eventually, I did make progress and put the dish back in the oven; this time with the lid off. The pie took a total of 15 minutes in the oven.

The verdict…

Thankfully, this recipe was worth the effort – 9 marks out of 10 from Dear Husband. Dear Son ate it and so did Baby Daughter. She particularly liked it because, when I was feeding hers to her, every time I went to blow on her spoon, she thought I was eating it and starting squealing! Thankfully, she is a child who loves her food and God help the person who thinks they are ever going to get her dinner. Not a chance. Dear Son, on the other hand, would gladly give his dinner away to anyone. Dear Sister No.1 and the brother-in-law called over so there was plenty in the large dish for them too and both of them loved the recipe.

Overall, this recipe was a big effort both, in terms of preparation and cooking; that said, it was worth it. When a recipe gets 9 marks (especially from Dear Husband), it automatically goes on The List. I’d never made a meat pie recipe before using pastry so it’s great that I can now cross that one off the list. It’s not a recipe to make on a work night but it’s definitely worth putting the time in at the weekend. Just remember to not put the lid on the dish the second time you put it in the oven…