Sunday 18 November 2007

Yn y gegin

Winter is here, and we are now eating things like kale... Faith sent me these seeds all the way from America ages ago -- it is yummy!

Greg made this delicious beef & ale pie:

And we cured the belly from the 1/2 pig we bought from Nick -- home made bacon! It is really delicious...

In other news, Bridget has now said that the chick who we thought was a boy is really a girl! More eggs!

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Um, do you have the recipe for that pie written down? If so... could you please send it to me!

Jessica at Bwlchyrhyd said...

Beef and ale pie

Pastry:

300g rich shortcrust pastry
beaten egg to glaze

Filling:

25g plain flour
900g chuck steak, cut into 2.5cm cubes
20g butter
1T vegetable oil
2 large onions, thinly sliced
2 carrots, chopped into 2.5cm cubes
2t Worcestershire sauce
2t tomato purée
500ml ale such as Guinness or stout
300ml hot beef stock
2t sugar
salt and ground black pepper

Place the flour in a large bowl and season with salt and ground black pepper, add the cubes of meat and toss well in the flour until evenly coated.

Heat the butter and oil in a large, heavy-based, flame-proof casserole dish until the butter has melted. Add the meat to the fat in small batches and brown quickly all over for just a minute, then remove with a slotted spoon and set aside. Add the onions and carrots to the pan and fry gently for about 2 minutes, then return the meat to the pan with the Worcestershire sauce, tomato purée, ale, stock and sugar. Grind in plenty of black pepper and add a little salt, stir well and bring to the boil. Cover, reduce to a gentle simmer and cook very slowly for 2 hours until the meat is tender and the sauce has thickened and is glossy. Remove from the heat, place into a 1.5 litre deep pie dish and leave to cool completely.

Preheat the over to 200C.

Roll out the pastry to a thickness of about 3mm. Cut a 2cm strip from the rolled-out pastry. Brush the rim of the pie dish with water and place the pastry strip around the rim, pressing it down. Cut out the remaining pastry about 2.5cm larger than the dish. Sit a pie funnel into the centre of the filling; it will support the pastry and stop it from sinking into the filling and becoming soggy.

Place the pastry lid over the top and press down on to the edges to seal. Trim off any excess pastry and crimp the edges with a fork, or between your thumb and forefinger. Brush the top with beaten egg and make a hole in the centre to reveal the pie funnel. Bake for 30-35 minutes until the pastry is crisp and golden.

Boggiano, Angela. Pie. London: Cassell Illustrated, 2006.

Anonymous said...

thank you!