Steak and ale pie
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Cook time: 
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Makes: 65-70 portions
 
Ingredients
Stew
  • 5 kg stewing beef
  • 2 kg mushrooms
  • 2 kg onion
  • 100 gr garlic
  • 1 kg celery
  • 1 kg swede
  • 400 gr tomato puree
  • 100 gr flour
  • 2 kg ale
  • 2000 ml beef stock
  • 75 gr Worcestershire sauce
  • 10 bay leaves
  • 40 gr thyme
  • 40 gr parsley
  • 10 kg potato
  • 3500 gr puff pastry
  • 10 eggs
Extra
  • 9 kg green vegetable
  • 5 iceberg lettuces
  • 3 cucumbers
  • 2 kg tomatoes
Instructions
Preparations
  1. Dice the beef and quarter the mushrooms.
  2. Peel and dice the onion and garlic, swede and celery.
  3. Peel, cut the potatoes.
  4. Shred the iceberg lettuces, deseed and dice the cucumbers and slice the tomatoes. Mix with a salad dressinf of your liking and store in the fridge until needed.
Cooking
  1. Heat the oil and brown the meat on all sides in a frying pan, cooking in batches. Remove the meat from the pan with a slotted spoon and transfer it to the tray in which it will be cooked in the oven later.
  2. Fry the mushrooms in the same pan and remove from the pan with a slotted spoon. Transfer to the oven dish.
  3. Sweat off the onion, garlic, swede and celery in the same pan until softened.
  4. Add the flour and cook out for several minutes
  5. Add the tomato puree and cook out for several minutes. Add the ale, stock and Worcestershire sauce to taste and bring to a simmer. Deglaze the pan and pour everything in the oven tray containing the meat
  6. Add the bay leaf, thyme and salt and pepper to taste. Cover the oven tray with a lit and stew the beef for 3 hours in the oven at 150 °C or until the meat is very tender. Let the stew cool completely, preferably overnight.
  7. Cook the potatoes till just tender, drain and cool.
Finish
  1. Preheat the oven at 180 °C.
  2. Divide the beef stew and potatoes between the individual oven dishes. Sprinkle the parsley on top.
  3. Roll out the puff pastry and cut out lids that fit neatly on top of the oven dishes. Place the lid on the oven dishes and brush them with the beaten egg.
  4. Bake the pies for 20 min in the oven until the puff pastry is cooked and the filling is hot.
  5. Serve with a green vegetable of your choice and salad on the side.
Stuff to know
This recipe will feed 65-70 people.
Make the stew ahead of time to allow it to cool completely before adding the puff pastry lits. It will enhance the flavour and keeps the puff pastry from getting soggy through the steam coming off the heat filling underneath.
Rather than using expensive steak, choose stewing beef which is more affordable and more flavourful after stewing for a couple of hours.
It is recommended to stew in the oven rather than on the stovetop, since the temperature control is more precise and the dish doesn’t burn as easily. In the oven, that heat is coming from all directions more or less equally. On the stovetop, the heat is coming only from the bottom.
It is possible to serve the potatoes on the side rather than inside the pie.
It is possible to make a large pie rather than individual ones.
For food safety reasons, the stew needs to cool as quickly as possible to fridge temperature. It is recommended to divide the stew in smaller containers placed in I sink full of cold water.
Recipe by Jeroen Valkenier Recipes at https://jpvalkenier.com/steak-and-ale-pie-2/