Sunday Gravy with yeah right: Steak, Guinness and Mushroom Pie!

Good morning everyone!

And a very happy early June Sunday to you all! May we all celebrate relatively sanely. 

Fun recipe for you today. I’ll be making a British classic of Steak, Guinness and Mushroom pie!

Well shit, guess you knew that from the title up there.

Yes, this was a first attempt at this dish for me. It most definitely won’t be a last attempt but there will be a tweak or two the next time I make this.

So.

Meat pies!

Just the very mention puts a goddamn smile on my face.

Who doesn’t love a nice piping hot, crusty dough covered pie made of savory meaty goodness?

I sure as hell am guilty as charged. Shit, the Brits, Scots and Aussies have made a fucking full on culture of meat pies.

I’m also a big fan of the hand-held varieties. You got your hand pies, your pasties, your Jamaican patties, your crawfish pies, your empanadas and samosas, your Aussie meat pies (or Pocket Warmers as they refer to them) hell if you break it down a goddamn burrito is a fucking hand held pie isn’t it?

[I’m certain Maestro would figure out a way to call it a sandwich but I’m sticking with this]

When you step back and really analyze this shit, isn’t a meat pie the perfect food? Can be held in one hand while holding a cold beverage in the other hand.

Sure you can do fruit pies and such but give me a savory, meaty, gravy filled pie and a beer and I am fucking satisfied!

A few years back, there was an Aussie pie shop right near where I work, and used to live, in El Segundo. The pies were delicious but they served them in a bowl along with a double dose of starchy/carb options layered on top followed by a couple of generous ladles of gravy. I remember having a steak and shiraz pie that was covered with mashed potatoes, stuffing and then smothered in gravy.

Motherfucker!

Of course it was delicious but holy fuck! Damn near put me in traction for the next 4 hours. You know what “After Thanksgiving full” is like right?

This was the same but think about eating an entire pumpkin pie after you’ve finished your Thanksgiving dinner.

That shit hurt for the rest of the day.

Which is why I always say consume your meaty pie goodness in moderation folks. You don’t want to eat so much of this shit that you vow to never eat it again.

Let’s do this motherfucker!

Steak, Guinness and Mushroom pie!

recipe via recipetineats.com

 0.7 oz dried porcini mushrooms

1 ¼ cups boiled water

 2 lb chuck beef cut into cubes

1 – 2 tbsp vegetable oil

4 garlic cloves minced

1 onion finely chopped

1 celery stalk finely chopped

1 carrot finely chopped

3 carrots halved lengthwise then cut into chunks

1/3 cup flour

10 oz Guinness

2 cups  beef stock

3 sprigs fresh thyme or 1 tsp dried thyme

2 bay leaves

7 oz bacon chopped small

10 – 13 oz mushrooms

1 – 2 sheets puff pastry (enough to cover pie)

Off we go!

Oh shit! Forgot to mention that this is a two day type of deal here. We make the filling on the first day, chill that shit out overnight then bake the pie the following day.

You do want maximum flavor enhancement yes?

Good!

Shit got expensive man! Definitely want to catch this when it’s on sale.

Porcini mushrooms are our “secret” ingredient today. I just so happened to have some left in the cupboard. I use these pretty frequently to ratchet up the funk on many a dish.

But you’ll need to give them a soak first. So bring that 1 and 1/4 cups of water to a quick boil and soak the porcinis in it for a good 30 plus minutes.

Finely dice up the first carrot and the celery.

I was going to make a bunch of Sweeney Todd jokes today but Alton Brown beat me to it by a good two decades.

Because, see? I get to chop up chuck with a cleaver!

Sorry chuck. But it’s your turn.

Season the meat with salt and pepper and get into a pan with hot oil. 

Get to browning.

Four to five minutes per side then turn, then remove to a plate and repeat until all of the meat has been browned.

After the meat has been browned add the onions into the same grease and meaty juices and saute for about 5 minutes.

Then add in the garlic and the finely diced carrot and celery. Cook for an additional 3-4 minutes.

Finally add in the larger chunks of carrot.

Let this cook for two to three more minutes.

Next add the flour to the veggies and stir around a bit.

Try and get everything evenly coated.

You know what improves any recipe? Especially one calling for beef and slow braising?

This right here.

Goddamn do I love Guinness Extra stout. That shit is an incredible braising ingredient, as we’ve demonstrated before.

Go ahead and add most of the Guinness in the bottle to the veggies. Saving a drink for yourself, of course.

Don’t worry, that bottle of Guinness has 5 buddies that you can acquaint yourself with as you cook.

This dish also requires beef stock. You folks know my old standby line of “Add flavor at every opportunity.”

Look! Flavor!

Yes indeed. Leftover birria consomme instead of standard store bought beef stock. Into the pot it goes.

Chop up the now properly soaked porcinis…

Then we add them, their soaking liquid, the browned beef and the herbs into the pot.

Slap a lid on there and let it simmer away for an hour and 45 minutes.

Near the end of the braising time go ahead and chop up and cook the bacon.

When cooked but not overly crisped remove the bacon and saute the mushrooms in the bacon fat.

Cook for a few minutes until nicely browned.

Into the beef mixture goes the mushrooms and the bacon then we will give this a final cook for about 20 more minutes.

This will hang out overnight in the refrigerator for an impromptu dance party of the ingredients. It will be better this way, trust me.

Shit! Reminder! Go ahead and fish out the thyme twigs and the bay leaves at this point. I found out the hard way about leaving them in.

Oh hey! I made homemade veggie stock with all of the vegetable trimmings and ends and the like.

This went in my weekly vegetarian soup and it was an outstanding addition. This shit is going to happen regularly going forward.

Next day.

Remove the puff pastry…

from the freezer.

[sigh*]

Remove the stewed beef mixture from its cryogenic deep sleep and let come up to room temp for at least an hour before putting into a casserole dish and topping with the puff pastry.

Speaking of which.

If the pastry is a little large just tuck the ends underneath the sides of the filling.

Preheat your oven to 375 degrees.

Baste the dough thoroughly with an egg wash and cut a few slits in the pie top for proper venting protocol.

Bake for 35 minutes or so until achieving this result.

Cool for 5-10 minutes before serving.

Sexy sexy stuff right?

Well? Yes and no. The filling was fantastic with one minor caveat.

Here is where you need to prepare yourself for heresy and blasphemy because you know what folks?

There was too much bacon.

I know, I know.

A sentence that’s rarely been uttered before but I stand by it. The smokiness of the bacon took away from the overall savoriness of the beef and the gravy. The filling was perfectly delicious as is mind you but dammit. It needed a lot less bacon. Two to three strips would have been more than enough. It did not need more than half a pack of goddamn bacon in there.

Now to my biggest issue and the reason for the (*) up there.

That puff pastry fucking sucked on here.

I’ll own that shit too. I followed the linked recipe right to the letter including using the puff pastry. All that shit did was instantly turn into a goddamn soggy fucking mess and take away from the overall flavor of the entire dish.

My brain did everything but scream at me when I was preparing to make this dish. It practically begged me to use my homemade buttery pastry dough on top.

But NOOOOOO!

I had to follow the recipe instead of heeding my own internal instincts.

I should have my fucking head examined for not listening to that inner voice.

I’ll make up for it and buy it a few beers later today. Promise.

As I mentioned, this dish WILL be made again and I WILL use my own pastry dough and also cut down on the bacon because apart from the aforementioned hiccups this shit was fucking delicious.

So just think how much better it will be when we get the motherfucker right!

Can’t wait to try.

Hope you all have a wonderful rest of your June weekend.

Do enjoy and thanks for stopping by.

You folks are the fucking best.

See you next week.

PEACE!