bay Archives - BigSpud

Y’know when Jamie’s on his thing? Going for it like a nutter and saying this recipe is the best thing ever? Well I got caught up in his craziness and decided to make this, the kitchen sink of beef pies. I made a tiny change in substituting stout for red wine (can’t abide beer / lager etc in pies – beer batter on fish is just vile) but other than that it’s the same.

This recipe from Jamie’s Great Britain is just OK – yes, a decent beef stew with a pastry lid but no more than that. I was quite disappointed all told, I was expecting fireworks but ended up with a perfectly OK pie.

Good, but not worth making again.

PS. A big shout out to Farmer’s Choice for their excellent casserole beef though – meltingly tender and full of flavour.

Kate & Wills’s Wedding Pie (serves 6):

2 sprigs rosemary, leaves picked

2 bay leaves

2 red onions, peeled and sliced

500g casserole beef, diced

1 tablespoon tomato puree

200ml red wine

1 tablespoon flour

750ml beef stock

70g pearl barley

1 teaspoon English mustard

2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce

50g Cheddar cheese, grated

For the pastry:

150g plain flour

50g suet

50 balt

1 egg, beaten

Put a large casserole pan over a high heat and add some olive oil. Toss in the herbs, onions and meat with a little seasoning. Mix well and cook for 10 minutes.

Add the tomato puree, wine, flour and stock and bring to a simmer. Turn the heat down low, stuff the lid on and cook for an hour. Then add the pearl barley and leave for another hour. Remove the lid and simmer for another 30 minutes. Add the mustard, Worcestershire sauce and cheese and check the seasoning. Leave to cool while you make the pastry.

Rub the flour, suet and butter together until it resembles breadcrumbs. Stir in 60ml cold water and bring it together. Wrap in clingfilm and refrigerate for half an hour.

Preheat the oven to 180°C. Ladle the stew into a deep pie dish. Roll out the pastry to about 1cm thick and cover the pie dish. Brush over the egg wash and bake for about 45 minutes, or until the pastry is golden.

Or Gary Masala, as I call it in my kitchen (ho ho). It’s a Hindi expression, meaning “hot paste” although I have heard other translations. It’s a blend of ground spices that are the cornerstone of the Indian kitchen.

Contents vary from cook to cook, from family to family; as a clueless Essex boy I have taken a ‘greatest hits’ from others I’ve heard about. I’ve made mine with: cinnamon sticks, cumin seeds, black peppercorns, nutmeg, mustard seeds, bay leaves and coriander seeds (all spices should be used in their whole unground form for maximum aroma). I lay them all out on a baking tray and put them in a mildly warm oven (about 140C) for about 45 mins. This can be done in a dry frying pan but I find the papery dryness from the oven lends itself better to crushing without gaining a scorched taint. The great side-effect of this is your kitchen is filled with a powerful aromatic perfume. Then comes the crushing: I don’t have a spice mill capable of this so it’s down to the good old pestle and mortar for me. I then store it in an old Schwarz spice pot.

The possibilities of this are great – I have a recipe coming up for this later this week…