Guinness Meat and Potato Pies

The food calendar has got a little horny for pastry in the past couple of weeks. With Cornish pasties last week and British Pie week happening right now, I’ve had to get a little randy for it too!

Cracked open

I was in two minds with what to fill my pie with – y’all get pretty tired of Fish after a while. So as the Six Nations are still going on and all our hopes are now pinned on our Emerald neighbours beating the French on St. Paddy’s weekend (next weekend) I’ve stuck to good old shin of Beef and Guinness with a little bit of optional Stilton!

Hot out of the oven

This recipe works best with a hot water pastry (Click that for the recipe) if you’re making individual pies for snacking (like a Pork pie kind of thing). However, if you just want to make a pie for dinner later on in the week you could just chuck the mix into a pie dish and cover it with some Puff Pastry…but if you do that you’re tacky and I hate you.

Hot water Pastry

For the Braising :

• 1kg Beef Shin diced
• 3 x White Onions
• 1 x Bulb of garlic white skin removed, clove skins left on
• 10g Rosemary
• 10g Thyme
• 1 x Large Carrot
• 3 separate pints Guinness
• Butter
• Oil

For the Pies:

• 600g Diced Potato
• 250g Diced Carrot
• 100g Spring Onions
• 100g Mushrooms
• 15g Parsley, chopped
• 15g Beef Dripping/Lard
• Beef Stock 150ml
• 3 x Free range Egg yolks, beaten
• Stilton (Optional)
• 8 x medium sized Pastry rings

Pre PrawnHub Point : When you’re rolling out the pastry for the pies, roll out enough pastry for one pie at a time, this will stop it all from drying out. It will give you chance to take your time on the shaping.

Pre heat your oven to 140 degrees Fan/160 Electric/ Gas Mark 2

1. In a hot cast iron pot or baking tray, on a gas hob seal off your Beef with some oil and butter. Once it is all browned, remove it from your pot and put in your onions, garlic, carrots and herbs.
2. Brown off the vegetables and then pour in 2 pints of Guinness. Bring the mixture to the boil and use a wooden spoon to loosen off any caramelised food stuck to the bottom of the pot. Turn it down to a simmer and reduce the mix by a 1/4.
3. Put the Beef back into the pot and put a lid on top (or cover with cling film if you’re using a tray) and put it in the oven for 2 hours 30 minutes.
4. Now move onto your potato and vegetable mixture. In a saucepan, heat up your fat and sweat off your Potato, Carrot and Mushrooms. Add your Beef stock and cook until the root vegetables are al dente.
5. Drain off any excess liquid and stir in your chopped spring onions and Parsley.
6. When the timer’s gone off, take the Beef from the pot and stir it in to your potato mix. Carefully remove the now roasted and soft Garlic cloves and push them out of the skins into the potato mix and stir. Place the Beef and potato mix into the fridge to cool.
7. You now have all the ingredients to make the BEST gravy to either put in the pies for added moisture or as a dipping sauce! Use the Hasta la Bisto recipe but swap the red wine for Guinness.
8. Turn your oven up to 180 degrees Fan/200 Electric/Gas Mark 4
9. To be on the safe side, grease and flour your rings to stop the pastry from sticking. The fat in the pastry should stop any sticking but it’s a bastard if you’d get to the end and the pastry stuck. All that hard work for nothing!
10. Roll out your pastry to 1cm thick and line your rings on a baking tray with grease proof paper. Save some for the lid. Crumble some Stilton into the bottom of the pie and top with the now cooled Beef and Potato mix. Press down hard to make sure there’s no air trapped inside.
11. Top with a lid of pastry, brush with egg yolk and fold the lip over the top and crimp the edges. Brush again with egg yolk and then make a hole in the top to let any steam escape.
12. Bake in the oven for 30 minutes.
13. Remove the Pies from their rings, and brush with egg yolk, return them to the oven on the greaseproof and bake for a further 15 minutes.
14. Serve HOT. These will keep in the fridge for 5-6 days. If you want to reheat them just put them back in the oven at the same temperature as before and bake for 10-12 minutes.

Post PrawnHub Point : You’ll more than likely have some mix leftover, which is great to freeze down and save for more pies later or just to have with some rice as a stew!

#2 : Don’t forget the Gravy!!

A proper Pie