Cutie Pie, Honey Pie

Pies are yum yes? Yes they are.

For the past six months a packet of shortcrust pastry has slowly disappeared into the frost on the side of our freezer, accidentally bought instead of puff. Taking charge of our fridge contents in our usual timely fashion of about half a year we went down to an organic butcher and got a cheap cut of beef, the old chuck steak. We then went home chopped it up, dried it with paper towel (thank-you Julia Childs), sealed it in some hot oil, browned some onions, chucked in some carrots, garlic and huge sprigs of thyme and rosemary then emptied 3/4 of a decent bottle of red and about the same amount of home-made parsnipy stock. We then left it on low for a few hours, in our lovely thick bottomed (kind of like me) pan, until you couldn't pick it up without the meat falling away. Finally add some peas and a bit of parsley before doing your final seasoning.

Cheap cuts cooked slowly are perfect for pies

Next up was the fiddly bit. Rube lined some muffin tins with shortcrust pastry, spooned in the cooled mix and covered with a sheet of puff before brushing with egg. Done! Baked until browned (15mins or so) then scoffed with copious amount of gravy (which you should make with the leftover juice of the braising liquid). Don't forget the mash and peas.  Make enough mixture to freeze half for next week's pies! We managed to restrain ourselves and, instead of eating 10 pies each, two weeks later it was the perfect quick fix.

 

Yup pies are delicious! Maybe it's because I only eat meat about once a fortnight. Meat is such a treat for me and the rarity of it means I really respect and treasure meat a lot more. With people coming out our ears and huge problems with the food system we better get used to the humble veggie because soon meat will become too expensive for most. That said though, it doesn't get much better than a steak pie.
 Next conquest: making our own pie pastry- anyone got a good recipe?

Thanks, James