Great Britain
Cooking time - 80 mins
Serves - 6
Difficulty - not too tricky
Ingredients
For the pastry
- 225g/1.5 cups plain flour, plus extra for rolling out
- 1 tsp salt
- 8 tbsp/1 stick butter
- 150ml/5fl. oz water
- 1 egg yolk, beaten, to glaze
For the filling
- 600g/21 oz braising steak, cut into thick pieces
- 1 tbsp plain flour
- 300ml/10fl. oz brown ale
- 1 onion, roughly chopped
- 2 carrots, roughly chopped
- 2 sticks celery, roughly chopped
- 300ml/10fl. oz beef stock
- 400g/4 cups white mushrooms, halved or cut into quarters
- knob of butter
- salt, to taste
- For the pastry, mix the flour, salt, butter and water into a large mixing bowl until it becomes a rough dough.
- Gather the dough in the bowl, then turn it onto a work surface. Squash the dough into a fat, flat sausage, without kneading. Wrap in cling film then chill it in the fridge for 15 minutes.
- Lightly flour the work surface and the pastry.
- Roll out the pastry in one direction until it’s 1cm thick and three times as long as it is wide.
- Turn the dough so that its open edge is facing the right, like a book. Press the edges of the pastry together using your rolling pin.
- Roll out and fold the pastry once again, repeating this for about four times to make a smooth dough. If the pastry feels greasy at any point, or starts to spring back as you roll, then cover and chill it for 10 minutes again before continuing.
- Meanwhile, lightly flour the steak chunks, add salt to taste and start braising them in your Whatever Pan. Cook for about 10 minutes.
- Add 150 ml/5fl oz. of brown ale and cook until golden-brown. Set aside.
- Fry the onion, carrots, and celery. Pour in the stock and brown ale. Add the mushrooms.
- Bring to the boil, cover and simmer for 1–1½ hours until the beef is tender, and the sauce has thickened. Set aside to cool.
- To make the pie, preheat the oven to 200°C/390°F. Flour the work surface, then roll out the pastry to 6mm/0.22in thickness and wide enough to cover your Whatever Pan. Make sure you have 1 part to layer the Whatever Pan and 1 part to cover the mixture.
- Butter the Whatever Pan and place your pastry inside it. Add the beef mixture and cover with the layer of pastry.
- Brush the top with a little egg yolk and place in the oven for 10 minutes.
