Pot pies

How to make a yummy-yummy pot pie! It's very easy, and it's one of those things that I don't really have a recipe for, I just sort of make it. Luke used to do beef and guiness ones for the bistro, and I watched him and adapted the recipe to include things I liked, which is probably the best way to do it.

Start off with a biggish saucepan. Um, this recipe has no measurements in it, so I apologise for that. My mum taught me to cook with instructions like "and then add a nice big healthy squirt of salt" (salt comes out of the big plastic saxa bottles in a squirt, LOL), so if that sort of description drives you crazy, you're gonna hate this. BUT! Every time I do the pies they turn out different because I throw in whatever's in the house/fridge, and keep tasting/sniffing it until it's about right.

So you get your saucepan and throw in a chopped/wedged onion or 2 (I use 2 because I like lots of onion but you probably only need one), bit of butter or oil, some garlic if you like. Fry it up a bit until the onion is as you like it, pop it aside in a little bowl. If you really want to go all out, you can fry some bacon up with it at this stage too. I was going to but forgot, didn't make much difference cos it still tasted amazing. Hehe.

Get your meat, (I used about 500g, made three pies) I like chuck steak because it gets that lovely stringy effect when it's made into a stew. Fry it up over a fairly high heat, and when it's sealed and looking good, and the saucepan base is nice and hot, throw in a heap of red wine. You can put in enough to sizzle and evaporate, but I like to put a good dose of it in, because I like my pie sauce rich. Then add stock, I put in a beef oxo cube and about a cup of water, generally (more wine + less stock = richer sauce); (more stock + less wine = lighter sauce). It's up to you what you like. If you use chicken meat instead of red meat, you can use veggie stock and white wine. The variations and the possibilities are quite literally endless. Throw in a few tablespoons (more or less) of worcestershire sauce. It should be quite runny and soupy now, but never mind, that'll change.

Then I start just throwing things in at random. I put in some cornflour to thicken it, some sweet soy sauce to make it nice and brown and rich, a big dose of dried herbs (I used a heaped tablespoon of the masterfoods italian blend this time which is just dried oregano, thyme, rosemary, marjoram, basil, sage and something else i can't remember), I put in some bbq sauce I think (LOL), um, salt and pepper and maybe even some gravox powder. Then I put in a cup of frozen peas and corn, and some sliced carrots, you can use whatever veggies you want. If you put diced potato in it, cook the potato first, and don't put as much flour in because the starchiness of the taters will thicken the mix a bit as well. Put the cooked onion and garlic back in too.

In winter, when you really need warming up, I put in cayenne pepper and sweet chilli sauce as well, so this makes it spicy as well as hot, and warms you up two ways! Red capsicum is nice thrown in as thin slices, it sweetens it up. Yum. I often put in a tablespoon of tomato paste and a very ripe chopped tomato, but again, it's up to you. You can also use beer instead of the wine. Experiment.

So mix it all up, and taste it. No, not the meat! Taste the sauce, the soup, on a spoon. Add pretty much whatever you like (I threatened to throw Phoenix in at one stage but she really wouldn't have a bar of it.)

Preheat your oven to about 220, 230 degrees C (you may need it hotter if you dont have an oven fan), and grab a tray to put the dishes on.

Then you want to reduce your mixture so it's the right thickness, as it's likely to still be pretty runny, you want to let the cornflour do its thing. Turn the heat right down to a slow simmer. This is where if you were clever, it'd be first thing in the morning, and you'd throw it in a slow cooker and leave it on all day. But if it's a weeknight and you've just gotten home from work, let it simmer for 30-60 mins, if it's really runny, leave the lid off the pot; if it's almost there but not quite, put a lid on to keep the moisture in the  pie mixture. Stir it every now and then, it will stick.

At this stage I like to do mash for serving with it while the mixture is simmering. Up ta you.

Then you cut little circles of frozen puff pastry, and get the pie mixture off the stove, ladle it into your pie dishes (dont over-fill them or they'll spill everywhere in the oven) so that the mixture is almost to the top - i leave about 5mm at the top), put the pastry on top of the dish and press with your fingers around the edge to seal. Brush with milk and chuck it in your nice hot oven until the pastry is puffy and golden brown.

I like to serve it with my mash and some fresh steamed greens or a salad.

Yummmmmmmm. Hope you can make sense of this. Enjoy :):):)

Comments

[Adele]

Yumyumyum!!!

I *completely* relate to this way of measuring - my mum is a "metric dollop" sort of cook, too, and rarely follows a recipe.

I'll try a few layers of rice paper instead of puff pastry, or stick mash on top and make a shepherd's (chicken herd's?) pie out of it.

[Emma Someone]

So how's next Thursday for dinner? Your place or mine?