Jack's Food Blog

This steak and ale pie is rich, hearty and warming, perfect for a cold winter’s day. It’s heavily based on this recipe on BBC food, but I’ve added a few things, and prepared it more like a pasty.

Ingredients:

For the sauce

• 1 tablespoon of olive oil
• 700g braising Steak
• 2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
• 1 large onion chopped roughly
• 2 large carrots, chopped finely
• 500ml ale.
• 1 stick of celery, chopped finely
• A handful of peas
• I teaspoon of dijon mustard
• 4 beef Oxo cubes
• 1/4 tsp chilli powder
• Handful of fresh thyme
• Salt and Pepper
• Red Wine or Sherry

For the Pastry

• 100g butter
• 200g flour
• Salt
• An egg (to glaze)

Method:

Start off by heating up your olive oil in a casserole dish on a medium heat, then add the onion. After a minute or so, add the garlic too. Once it’s softened up nicely – after about 5 minutes – add the steak.

Try not to faff around with the meat as it cooks, let it get a nice bit of colour all around then add half of the ale. Let it cook down for a minute or two, then add the rest of the ale, along with the thyme, mustard, chilli powder, salt and pepper. Turn the oven on to about 140 degrees Celsius.

Now add the Oxo cubes and 100ml of hot water, then chuck in the celery and carrots. Cook it like this for about 10 minutes. Once you have, add the peas, make sure that the meat is fully covered in sauce and transfer to the oven with the lid off.

Cook it for as long as you can (maybe 2 hours) and make sure that when you take it out of the oven, the juices have to consistency of a thin gravy. If it’s at all watery, you’ll need to give it longer. Don’t worry if the top layer of beef is dark in colour, this is no problem at all.

Whilst the sauce is cooking, prepare your pastry. Simply sift the flour onto a clean surface, add a pinch of salt, then and slowly cut butter into it and mix with your fingertips. Then add 2 tablespoons of cold water and mix again. Once it’s nicely combined, put it in cling film to cool in the fridge for at least 20 minutes.

Once the filling is ready, flatten the pastry out to about 2mm thick on a floured surface. Cut each piece into a circular(ish) shape, and slap some of that thick, lovely sauce inside. Next, carefully flop the pastry in half, and fold then squeeze the edges over to seal it. Don’t worry, if my explanation is no use, click here for a video of someone doing it far better than me.

Next, glaze it with an egg yolk and chuck in the oven at about 180 degrees until it’s all golden and lovely. Mine may not be much of a looker, but I promise it tasted nice!

Finally, if you want to make this extra Northern with a bit of gravy, sieve some of the juices from the pie filling, then boil them down with a beef stock cube, a touch of boiling water and a little red wine or sherry. As it thickens add a little sieved flour, then boil to whatever thickness you like. Lovely.

If this is your first time here on Jack’s Grub, welcome! Should you be on the look out for other recipes, best to start with my original pasta sauce. It’s a recipe I spent years perfecting and am sure you’ll love!

Another of my very favourites – which you should definitely try – originating in America, is my Chicken and Chorizo Jambalaya recipe.