Operation Steak Pie.

Today's recipe takes a while to make but is well worth it in the end. It is a relatively simple recipe that tastes great and, again, has a minimal amount of ingredients so is good on the wallet too.

 

Ingredients for the puff pastry:

250g of plain flour.
250g of room temperature butter.
1 tsp of salt.
75ml of cold water.

1. Add the sifted flour, salt and the butter to your mixing bowl and loosely rub together.
2. Create a well in the middle of your mixture and add two thirds of the water. (Add more as necessary). Kneed until you have a dough consistency. It shouldn't be too sticky but if it is then add a little more flour and kneed it in.
3. Turn out onto a floured board, kneed until you're happy with the dough and then wrap in cling-film (or a plastic bag since I ran out) and leave in the fridge until you're ready to roll it out.

 

And now for the best bit... The filling. :)

Ingredients:
As much steak as you like providing it will fit!
500ml of beef stock.
1 tbsp of Soy sauce.
2 tbsp of tomato puree.
1 tsp of your preferred mustard.
1 onion (and any other small veg you like in your pies).

1. Put the beef, beef stock, onions (and mushrooms in my case) into the slow cooker on high and cover for around 3 hours. Check that after this time the beef is tender and cooked.
2. Add the mustard and the tomato puree.
3. Mix 2 tbsp of flour with water to form a paste and mix into the beef mixture. Stir the mixture until it boils and thickens.

 

 You know the rest. Grease and line your pie dish with pastry, add the filling and put a crust on the top. Brush the top crust of the pie and the outer rim of the bottom crust with either a milk or egg wash and bake until the pastry goes golden brown. For me, that was in a Gas Mark 6 oven for 25 minutes.

 

And I stuck together the left over pastry from the pie and made a jam tart. Waste not, want not. :)