Irish Steak Pot Pie
Ingredients
- 2 T oil
- 500 g stew beef (in 1" squares)
- 7 mushrooms (large, chopped in quite large chunks)
- 2 red onions (medium, chopped)
- Salt (Sea) (to taste)
- freshly ground black pepper (to taste)
- 568 mL Guinness (19oz, divided)
- 2 beef bouillon cube
- garlic powder (to taste)
- Salt (Sea) (to taste)
- freshly ground black pepper (to taste)
- 2 t dried thyme
- 10 g ketchup (2 tsp, or a couple squirts)
- 10 g barbecue sauce (2 tsp or so, if you have any on hand)
- 2 pie crusts (or puff pastry)
- 2 diced potatoes (small, waxy)
- 4 T Corn Starch / Corn Flour
- 4 T water
- 1 egg yolk
- 2 T milk
Method
In a deep saucepan/pot, heat the oil. Brown the meat, mushrooms, and onions, and add salt and pepper to taste. After everything is browned, deglaze the pan with some Guinness, then add the remaining Guinness.
Next, add in the beef boullion cube, a generous dose of garlic, more salt and pepper to taste, and the dried thyme. Add the ketchup and barbecue sauce if using, just for a little bit of flavor. Stir everything, and let it simmer for 40 minutes.
While it simmers, make your favorite pie crust recipe, or prepare a storebought one. Press the bottom crust into a deep pie plate, and leave the second one aside for now.
After the stew has simmered for 40 minutes, add the diced potato pieces. Make sure you taste it to make sure it's nice and quite well seasoned to your tastes. Let simmer another 20 minutes.
When finished simmering, take a slotted spoon and scoop all of the meat and vegetables into the prepared pie crust. Mix together the corn starch and cold water to form a slurry; add slowly to the sauce left in the pot and boil a few minutes to let it thicken to a quite thick gravy. Once thick, add the gravy to the meat and vegetables in the pie crust, put on the top crust, poke some holes in it. Bake at 190C / 375F for about 60 minutes.
Near the end, mix together the egg yolk and milk to make an egg wash; brush on top of the pie crust to make it golden brown when done.
Notes
Note from source: You could also put it into ramekins to make single portions for individual pies.
SJ Note 19 July 2011: I used half Guinness and half beef stock when I made this, and because I read wrong I used 568mL of each, so it was too much liquid; cornstarch and simmering with the lid off helped to thicken the sauce at the end sufficiently, but it was too much beer. The overpowering flavor of beer, we just didn't like. Also make sure to cut your vegetables into quite large chunks, as they were quite mushy after the two hours' cooking. The beef came out quite nicely, but that was all we liked in this pie. If you try it, use much less beer, and substitute the remaining liquid with either beef stock or water.