Beef & Guinness Pie

500g Braising steak cut into chunks

250g puff pastry

5 mushrooms quartered

1 medium red onion roughly sliced.

1 tablespoon of thyme (fresh or dried is fine)

1 clove of garlic peeled and roughly chopped

1 can of Guinness

1 heaped teaspoon of plain flour

Salt

Pepper

preparation 8 mins • you cook for 12 mins • total time 2 hr 40 mins

Serves 2 hungry people

Watch a 30 second preview of my cook-along video below

If you cannot view the video below, click here to download QuickTime from Apple's website.

For me this pie is heaven in a dish. Succulent slow cooked beef, rich guinness and puff pastry. It's really easy to cook, throw in the fact it uses the cheapest cut of beef, and you have a sure fire winner! This is two part recipe. In part one we make the filling. In part two we make and bake the pie.

1 litre pie dish

1 large pan (preferably hob to oven proof)

Plate slightly bigger than pie dish (if you have one)

Rolling pin

Before you start, ensure you have all your ingredients ready as above. Turn on your oven to 160c, add knob of butter an glug of oil to a large pan, then pop it on the hob on a high heat. Now click here!

Before you start, remove your pan from the oven and transfer the contents to your pie dish. Turn the oven up to 180c, have your pastry and rolling pin out with plentty of room and click here!

Add a knob of butter and about a tablespoon of oil to a large pan, then pop the pan on the hob on a high heat. Once the butter has melted, add in the mushrooms, red onion, garlic and a teaspoon of dried thyme. Stir well and leave whilst you season the beef with a good pinch of salt and pepper. Give your pan another stir about then add in the beef. All you need to do here is to move the beef around to stir everything together. Add in a good heaped teaspoon of plain flour and stir. The pan should go dry as the flour absorbs all the liquid. Pour in the can of guinness and stir to mix through.

Bring the pan to the boil (this may be instantly if your pan is hot enough). Pop a lid on the pan or transfer the contents to an oven proof dish, and then put it in the oven at 160c for 2 hours.

After 2 hours, remove your beef from the oven and transfer it to your pie dish. Set this aside whilst you roll out the puff pastry.

Lightly flour your work surface and pop the pastry down onto the flour. Lightly flour your rolling pin and start rolling out the pastry using an even pressure to ensure that once side isn't thicker than the other. You are looking to roll the pastry to roughly the thickness of a pound coin. Next you need to cut out the pastry into a circle slightly bigger than the pie dish. I use a plate that's slightly bigger than the pie dish and just cut around this. If you don't have this or your pie dish isn't round, put your dish down on the pastry and cut around it with a knife, leaving an inch gap all the way around.

Wet your thumb and forefinger and rub it around the rim of the pie dish, wetting it slightly. Now take the leftover strips (the outside) of the pastry and roughly run it around the rim of the dish, draping over the edges slightly. You should end up with your pie dish with just the rim covered with pastry. Press down slightly on the pastry to help it stick. Next take your pie lid and pop it on top of the dish. With a thumb and forefinger, gently pinch together the lid and the pastry you put round the rim.

Brush a beaten egg over the pie lid, put two little holes in the middle a knife (to allow steam to escape) and bake in the oven at 180c for 20 minutes. After 20 minutes, remove from the oven and allow the pie to stand for 5 minutes before serving.

I hope that you enjoy it!

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