Recipe: Steak and Ale Pie | FOOD

Steak and Ale pie is the first pie I ever learnt to make and its always been my favourite. Pie is such a warm, comforting meal and there are so many different flavour combinations but I love how soft and tender the beef is in this steak and ale pie.

The trick is to dust the beef in flour before you brown the meat off which will thicken the sauce when you add in the Guiness ale and stock later on. I always use Guinness (although I can’t stand drinking the stuff) but you can use any ale you like. A local one might work well.

Otherwise, you just throw everything into the pan and leave it for a few hours, you can’t get more simple than that! It tastes much better if you make the pie filling up a day or two in advance because it lets the flavours develop and become more intense so it worked really well as part of my New Years Eve Dinner Party because I made it up a few days in advance and just needed to put it in the oven and prepare the accompanying mashed potatoes and vegetables to serve it. It’s a fantastic feeling to place your pie on the table as a centrepiece for your guests so presentation is key. You can use any leftover pastry trimmings to decorate your pie, here I simply decorated with the letters ‘PIE’ (using alphabet cookie cutters) but I’ve also done holly leaves to decorate a Christmas pie and used letters to spell ‘HAPPY BIRTHDAY’ on a birthday pie.

I’ve also done this recipe before and made some simple swaps to make a slightly different pie, using venison instead of beef, port instead of ale and sweet shallots instead of onions. My Venison and Port pie was delicious so I recommend playing around with it and making it work for you.

Keep scrolling for the recipe!

• 

• 

---

Steak and Ale Pie – The Recipe

Serves 6

INGREDIENTS

20g plain flour

600g diced beef

40g butter

2 onions, diced

4 carrots, peeled and chopped into cubes

500ml Guiness (or any other ale)

1 tbsp tomato puree

1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce

500ml beef stock

Jus Rol Puff Pastry ready rolled sheet (320g)

Beaten egg (to glaze)

METHOD

1. Place the flour on a plate and tip the diced beef onto the plate and ensure every piece is covered in flour.
2. Heat the butter in a large pan and brown off the meat in small batches to get some colour. Remove the beef from the pan and set aside until later.
3. In the same pan, with a medium heat fry off the onions and carrots for five minutes until softened.
4. Add the meat back into the pan and pour over the Guiness into the pan, add the tomato puree, Worcestershire sauce and hot beef stock. Stir together with some salt and pepper
5. Reduce the heat to a low heat and put a lid on the pan. Leave for two hours so that the beef cooks slowly and becomes soft and tender and the sauce thickens.
6. Remove from the heat and place the filling into a pie dish to cool (overnight works really well to let the flavours develop).
7. Heat the oven to 180 degrees centigrade and place your ready made puff pastry sheet over the top of the dish.
8. Trim off any excess pastry around the outside of the dish, pressing the edges together to seal. Don’t forget to make two slits in the middle of the pie to let the steam out as the pie cooks.
9. Glaze the pastry with beaten egg wash before putting your pie in the oven for 30 minutes, until the pastry is crisp and golden.
10. Serve with fluffy mashed potatoes

What’s your favourite pie filling?

---