Cooking with Haircut: Steak and Ale Pie

Soldato
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That's right, another cooking thread.

This is a traditional steak and ale pie, really simple to make (a little time consuming though) and very tasty.

First step is to take some braising steak (I used around 800g) and dice into bite sized chunks.
Season some flour with salt and pepper and coat the pieces of steak in the flour.
Should look like this when you are done:


Heat some oil in a big pan, if you have a cast iron pot like a Le Creuset then this is ideal, and cook the steak in small batches for a few minutes on a medium/hot heat to give some colour to the meat.


At this stage you should have lots of crusty bits in the bottom of the pan. Keep the pan on the heat and put in half a pint of water to deglaze the bottom of the pan. Once this is done keep the juices ready for later.

You will then need to cook some onions, I've used 2 medium onions for this amount of steak. Cook on a medium heat until they look like this:


Next add the steak back to the pan. This is where the ale comes in, add a 500ml bottle of your favourite beer to the pan along with the juices you deglazed earlier and bring to the simmer.
Next we have a few extra ingredients for flavouring:


I used two teaspoons of wholegrain mustard, one tablespoon of mushroom ketchup and one teaspoon of worcestershire sauce.
I also put in two tablespoons of fresh thyme at this stage.

Optionally you can add a tablespoon or two of tomato ketchup to give a slightly richer flavour.

Once everything is mixed in put a lid on your pot and transfer to an oven at 160 degrees C and cook for around 2 hours.

After two hours is up the meat should be nice and tender.
This amount is enough for one large pie to feed at least four people, what I have done is taken the mixture and made small individual pies.

Once you have put the mixture into the pie dish of your choosing leave to cool for a while otherwise it will make the pastry soggy.

I've just used ready made puff pastry here as I don't have the patience to make it myself.
The pie is topped off with a little grated parmesan cheese and cooked in the over at 180 degrees C for 25-30 minutes.



Serve with whatever side dishes take your fancy.
 
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Looks superb, I might actually try this one day next week.

Wouldn't 1/4-1/2 pint of white wine be better than 1/2 pint of water for cooking the onions in?
 
Holy megabump Batman.

To actually answer Nokkon's question from over a year ago. I would say that you wouldn't want white wine to cook the onions in as that would clash with the ale.
You could use some beef stock though if you wanted. The juices from the meat should be enough to give adequate flavour though.
 
Thread title lies! I see no pie.... I see stew with a lid :p

Still looks good though :)

It's a top-crust pie, see Wikipedia...

Wiki said:
Pies can be either "filled", where a dish is covered by pastry and the filling is placed on top of that, "top-crust," where the filling is placed in a dish and covered with a pastry/potato mash top before baking, or "two-crust," with the filling completely enclosed in the pastry shell.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pie
Damn Scots, don't know the different sorts of pies :p
 
Top crust pies indeed, yes I have seen such things for sale. A fabrication of a pie for those not man enough for a real pie ;):D

My Scottish friend is correct, a "top crust" pie, is indeed a poor excuse of a pie. It's meat soup with a hat. It's not a pie, a pie is filling, fully coated with pastry.

Here is a pork pie I consumed earlier, along with a glass of ale. That's a pie, it's a real pie. A man's pie.

IMG_4123.JPG_%40_50%25_%28RGB_8%29-20080913-215322.png
 
Top crust pies indeed, yes I have seen such things for sale. A fabrication of a pie for those not man enough for a real pie ;):D

Bah, a real pie is where you have a decent amount of filling and don't try to overwhelm things with too much pastry.
This is especially true if you have steak as a filling :p

Also, I disregard the comments from the poster above who chooses to name himself after a chav from Burnage.
 

My Scottish friend is correct, a "top crust" pie, is indeed a poor excuse of a pie. It's meat soup with a hat. It's not a pie, a pie is filling, fully coated with pastry.

Here is a pork pie I consumed earlier, along with a glass of ale. That's a pie, it's a real pie. A man's pie.

IMG_4123.JPG_%40_50%25_%28RGB_8%29-20080913-215322.png

those pie's look like the ones i get from asda all the time, they are LUSH! :D
 
Cool I'll try mushroom ketchup next time, i usually make it the same as that but with button mushrooms and - the mushroom ketchup.

Served with mash and onion gravy, mmmmm.
 
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