English classic, steak and ale pie, with the crust made from scratch and the filling rich and beefy. The ultimate comfort food when the nights are pulling in.
Flair or precision?
Top chefs always say how important it is to taste and season things as you go along: more salt? more acidity? cook it down? dilute it? zing it up or chuck it down the bin chute? It makes perfect sense as that’s surely how you arrive at the best possible flavour, taste and texture – a pinch more salt, a spoonful of lemon juice etc. But there’s a problem: how to keep record of what you’re gradually adding?
All you ever see the chefs do in their shows is nonchalantly throw in a handful of this, a pinch of that. They pour in salt from a container like there’s no tomorrow but know when to stop. They slip in a single mashed anchovy or inexplicably slug in some milk.
Perhaps they can tell how much salt one wrist shake is, perhaps they can eyeball glugs into millilitres and maybe they know exactly how much a knob of butter weighs – and remember precisely what they’ve added. Possibly that’s what makes a great chef. Otherwise how on earth do you know what the final, perfect recipe should contain?
They cheat!
Personally, I suspect they cheat and write down an approximation of what they remember went into that perfect dish. After all, I too have decent salting skills and I’m able to assess on sight whether a recipe sounds like good stuff or utterly wrong. But I find it very tricky to keep record of successive additions and enhancements when working on a dish in my test kitchen.
That’s a stumbling block time and time again. But here I hasten to reassure you: this steak and ale pie was a winner at the first attempt. Supremely flavourful, hitting all the right spots with the salty, the meaty and the earthy from the mushrooms.
How to make the pie crust
This is a very classic shortcrust, savoury pastry: with lard. If you used it alone, it would make for a very ‘short’ texture, which is why I use half lard and half butter, to achieve the golden medium: crisp and melting, but not too crumbly.
The fat is rubbed into the flour seasoned with some mustard powder, and it comes together with the help of an egg beaten with icy, slightly acidic water. Again, you could skip the egg to make it crumblier, but it makes rolling out more difficult. You might as well do it as written, since I’ve done all the testing already, ha ha.
The pastry needs at least an hour’s rest in the fridge, so it can easily be made ahead, or even doubled up and frozen. If you’re making just one pie, wrap it up in unevenly sized portions, the larger of which will serve as the bottom.
How to make the steak pie filling
The pie has ‘steak’ in its name but it’s a cheap kind of steak. Braising steak, pre-diced will do fine. Alternatively you can buy rump or bavette if you’d like the meat better quality but still not bank breaking.
The process is straightforward, like for a stew, except better use an ovenproof pot or casserole dish. Diced beef, seasoned and dusted with flour should be browned in a pan, then removed to make space for onions and garlic.
I love a steak pie with mushrooms and here both dried mushrooms, which are a flavour bomb, and fresh ones are used. Skip them if you want just meat, meat, meat but the flavour will suffer.
Dried mushrooms can be crumbled straight into the onions, and the fresh ones cooked with them for a few minutes.
Then the meat returns to the pan followed by the liquids – ale or stout with seasoning. And now the whole pot goes into the oven for about two hours, which is brilliant because a/ hands off, without the need to stir it constantly and b/ the meat will be tenderer sooner.
Balancing gravy
Whilst the steak filling is cooking, the liquid will naturally reduce and make divine gravy.
Simply check how much there is before cooling the filling and whether it’s the right consistency. More is better: everyone will be pleased if there’s gravy on the side of the pie.
Ladle some off into a small saucepan, leaving not too much around the meat. But note that the filling will thicken as it cools down.
Assembling the pie
Once both components are cooled and you’re ready to roll (ha!), prepare a pie dish, about 23cm/9 inch in diameter. Roll out the bigger pastry portion to a size larger than your pie dish. Transfer it into the dish and let it hang over (ha ha!). Roll out the other piece to serve as the lid. Set aside, while you spoon the filling into the dish.
Carefully place the lid on and crimp the edges or just press them with a fork, to seal. Brush it with the egg but make sure there are slits for the steam to escape.
The pie will be ready after about an hour in the oven. Let it rest for a few minutes before cutting into it, to help the filling settle.
More classic pie recipes
Chicken and mushroom pie with homemade Cheddar crust. Shortcrust pastry made from scratch, creamy chicken and wild mushroom filling, it’s a pub classic and super tasty.
Fennel and Taleggio cheese pie with savoury crust made from scratch, this is an easy and excellent vegetarian comfort dish recipe.
Pork and mushroom pie served hot or warm, with gravy and chunky tender pork. This is not the traditional raised pork pie, but more like steak or chicken pie with chunks of pork cooked in gravy. Pork pie with crisp crust and flavoursome pieces of meat and wild mushrooms inside.
More cheaper beef cut recipes
Spicy seared bavette steak, seasoned with a dry rub of chilli flakes, oregano, garlic and a secret umami agent: dried mushroom powder.
Best red wine braised short ribs of beef with plum sauce, sweet and tender, called Obama’s short ribs, after the dish served to Barack Obama in a Harlem restaurant.
Oven braised beef brisket, tender and flavoursome with onions, mushrooms and sweet wine. Beef brisket turns almost into pulled beef after 4 hours of slow roasting in the oven, and the rendered sauce is to die for.