The Best Beef and Ale Pie (yet)
"Love, don't order the steak pie, I'll make you one!" Quoth I last saturday. And unsurprisingly, C held me to that!
So, after a lot of ferreting around and bothering people who make good pie (Thanks Ames!) I kinda cobbled something together that tasted pretty good! Okay, so some of the gravy ingredients were a little imaginative as you'll see, but it tasted so good, apparently that C has asked me to make it "forever" and not change the recipe at all. Wow!

Sadly there's no photos cos it was devoured too quickly (and because the pastry lid went a bit awol in the fan oven!!). One of these days, I'll get into proper pornographic food photography and this little place will be a fully fledged food blog, but not yet.

So, here's the recipe:

1kg Beef, cut into cubes. (we used a roasting joint cos they're cheaper than stewing steak)
2tbsp seasoned flour
1 large onion, halved and then sliced
2 carrots, diced
1 bottle Ale (Newcastle Broon works, but you can do a delia and buy the prettiest bottle if it makes you happy)
5 or 6 mushrooms, sliced
1 tbsp herbes de provence (or thyme, rosemary etc.)
1 beef oxo cube
worcestershire sauce, tomato ketchup, cocoa powder and black treacle
1 pack ready made puff pastry (I have great respect for those that make it, but I am not one!!)
Butter, for frying.

Toss the beef in the seasoned flour to coat, whilst heating some butter in a heavy based pan large enough for your ingredients. Batch fry until sealed all over and slightly browned. Remove the beef to a bowl (to catch all those juices). Fry the onions until soft and just golden, stir in any remaining flour at this point. Add the carrots and herbes. Cover the pan and sweat for about 5 minutes. Return the beef to the pan, adding any juices that have accumulated, and pour over the ale. Add any blood that may have been in the meat packet (don't say ew - what do you think juices are?). Stir to start dissolving the flour, add the mushrooms and allow to bubble away for about 10 minutes to reduce the sauce to workable quantities. Sprinkle over the oxo cube and add worcestershire sauce. The other sauce ingredients are, I guess, optional but when I tasted the gravy it was a little lacking so I played with it a bit. If you have tomato puree, that might be better than ketchup but I did like the spicyness it added. The cocoa powder is a slightly strange idea, but it comes from the same reasoning of adding cocoa to chilli con carne. Often beef dishes lack a certain meaty earthiness (that I'm sure you'd get from a good helping of proper glacé but I've not followed Mr. Bourdin's advice on that yet) and I find that the cocoa does add that. Be sure to use the 'meanest darkest' cocoa you can find and NOT that sweetened rubbish you buy in the states. The treacle added a bitter-tempered sweetness that lifted the earthiness nicely. You could use balsamic vinegar instead. I used a heaped teaspoon of each, for guidance.
TASTE your gravy and make sure it's okay for seasoning. If all is well, pile your now unctuous and luscious beef casserole into a pie dish. Roll the pastry enough to cover and cover the dish. Pie is really that complicated! I found that moistening the edge of the dish with the milk I used to glaze helped the pastry to stick to the dish. If you want, decorate the pie, but don't if you don't have time or can't be bothered. The whole thing will probably be eaten before anyone really notices the decorations anyway.
Bake the pie in a normal oven (170°C fan) for 25ish minutes till the pastry is risen and golden. It makes sense to put a baking tray under the pie dish in case that gorgeous gravy boils over.
Serve with potatoes to mash into the gravy, and a fresh green veg like sugar snap peas. Drink Ale with it, if you're so inclined.

Ironically, while C was helping with the washing up, I picked up the Good Food Calendar for 2006 to have a browse. The recipe for November is Beef and Ale pie. I think mine might be better though!

I also made a carrot cake this weekend - Dad loves it. It's an old recipe from a book my primary school printed when I was in year 3, but I've made it dozens of times.

Also in the exciting news, i got a birthday present from the dear Drs - a Rose-shaped bundt tin!!! I am planning on baking in it for Valentine's Day, and will try and post the photos of it then. I think that considering the shape of the tin, it is allowed to use a smidgen of pink colouring to make it prettier!! I was SO excited when I opened it, I LOVE the Nordic Ware bundt tins - so pretty!!