Steak & Kidney Pie
A great, dark, slow-cooked pie — chunks of chuck steak and ox kidney in a glossy stout gravy under a lid of puff pastry that shatters at the first cut. Winter cooking at its most generous.
Ingredients
900 g beef chuck, cut into large chunks
250 g ox kidney, cored and cut into pieces
3 tbsp plain flour, seasoned
3 tbsp beef dripping or vegetable oil
2 large onions, chopped
3 cloves garlic, minced
250 g chestnut mushrooms, quartered
500 ml stout or dark ale
500 ml beef stock
2 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
2 sprigs fresh thyme
1 bay leaf
375 g all-butter puff pastry
1 egg, beaten, for glazing
Method
- 1
Toss the beef and kidney in the seasoned flour. Heat the dripping in a heavy casserole and brown the meat in batches until deeply coloured. Set aside.
- 2
Soften the onions in the same pan for 10 minutes, add the garlic and mushrooms and cook for another 5 minutes until glossy.
- 3
Return the meat to the pot with any resting juices. Pour in the stout, stock and Worcestershire sauce, add the thyme and bay leaf, and bring to a bare simmer.
- 4
Cover and cook in a 150°C oven for 2 hours, until the meat is meltingly tender and the gravy is thick and dark. Cool completely — this is important for a crisp pastry lid.
- 5
Tip the filling into a pie dish, fitting a pie funnel in the centre. Roll the pastry to 5 mm thick, cover the pie, crimp the edge, glaze with beaten egg and cut a steam hole. Bake at 200°C for 30–35 minutes until deeply golden and puffed.
Cook's notes
The filling really must be cold when the pastry goes on — a warm filling steams the underside of the lid and makes it soggy. An overnight rest in the fridge is even better.