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.
Heston Blumenthal has recently created a range of ice creams for Waitrose, including chocolate and rosemary ice cream. I got the chance to try this, along with popcorn ice cream at Waitrose’s Summer party held at the V&A. I was mesmerised by the taste, deeply rich and chocolatey, but with a smooth herbal note. It’s reminiscent of choc-mint ice cream as it provides a similar mentholesque flavour, but remains distinctly rosemary-y.
At the event I also realised a big dream of mine – to meet Heston. OK, we didn’t swap phone numbers or make plans to go see Pirates 4. But I did manage to tell him what an inspiration he is to me and how much I enjoy his work. He seemed genuinely appreciative, not merely saying thanks and walking off but keen to express his gratitude.
Gushing aside, I had to try and recreate that ice cream flavour that I’d sampled. I was looking to marry that rich smoothness with a warm herb flavour. After some experimenting I’m confident that I’ve nailed it. It’s chocolatey, creamy and really interesting. It would be a good one to wheel out when friends are over for dinner as all the prep is well beforehand and you only need a little to satisfy. It’s really nice with crushed pistachios. A quick tip – this needs a good twenty minutes defrosting to get smooth and easily scooped, so remove it from the freezer just as you serve the main meal.
Be warned: bring your whisking arm with you.
You can probably make this with an ice cream maker but I’ve never owned one so I can’t help you there. A lot of people go for the ‘ break it up with a fork several times during freezing’ but it’s never made any noticeable improvement to me, so I don’t bother.
Chocolate and rosemary ice cream (makes about 600 ml in volume):
40g cocoa powder
1 large sprig of rosemary
500 ml whole milk
125g dark chocolate (about 70% cocoa solids)
¼ teaspoon vanilla salt
6 egg yolks
100g caster sugar + 6 tablespoons caster sugar
100ml double cream
Put the milk into a saucepan and pop over a medium heat. Roll up the rosemary but leave it intact (this friction breaks the surface of the herb and causes it to leak more oil). Whisk the cocoa into the milk as it heats, and keep whisking until the milk just reaches the boil. Take off the heat.
Melt the chocolate. You can use a bain marie for this if you like but personally I find it less faff to use a microwave on low power. Zap it for 2 minutes at a time until smooth.
Whisk the egg yolks and 100g sugar together until a pale ivory colour and thick. Add the hot milk to the yolks gradually, whisking all the time. Return the mixture back to the saucepan and put back on a gentle heat. Keep on whisking and add the melted chocolate, and whisk for a further 5 minutes until thickened. Again turn off the heat and leave to one side while you make a caramel.
Melt the 6 tablespoons sugar with 2 tablespoons water over a medium heat. Swirl the saucepan round to combine but do not stir. Keep it going until it turns a lovely amber colour, then add the double cream and keep on swirling. When the caramel is smooth add to the chocolate milk, again with the whisking. Pour through a sieve into a freezable container and freeze at least overnight before serving.
It’s probably the worst translation in the world, but Google tells me the title of that dish is the Italian for Toad in the Hole. Which is kinda what this is. I was cleaning out the cupboards / freezer and had enough for stodgy, creamy polenta with pockets of herby sausage. This is really good fun served with a punchy tomato sauce.
Rospo nel buco (serves 4):
8 quality sausages – Lincolnshire would be good here
1 teaspoon fennel seeds
80g polenta
240ml chicken stock
Few sprigs rosemary, leaves picked and finely chopped
4 tablespoons creme fraiche
Some grated parmesan
For the tomato sauce:
1 tin good quality tomatoes
1 clove garlic, crushed
Balsamic vinegar to taste
Halve the sausages and squeeze out the meat into little balls. Fry in a hot pan with a little oil and the fennel seeds until the sausageballs are browned on all sides.
Meanwhile, do the sauce: fry the garlic gently in a dribble of olive oil for a minute and add the tomatoes and half the rosemary. Simmer gently.
Get the grill on hot. When the sausage is nearly done get the stock on to boil. Add the polenta and remaining rosemary, whisking all the time to avoid clumping. When it starts to thicken whisk for another minute and then take off the heat. Add the creme fraiche, parmesan and check for seasoning. You want it to be fairly sloppy so add a little more boiling water or milk to thin it down if needed. Pour the polenta around the sausages and pop under the grill.
Check the seasoning of the tomato sauce and add vinegar for twang. When the polenta is bubbling and brown on top get it out and leave to stand for a minute, then serve with tomato sauce on the side.
I was asked to devise the ‘perfect onion gravy recipe’ and that’s a challenge I don’t take lightly.
So what should it be? For me rich and nourishing, with sweet and complex flavours. The onions are obviously key, but the stock makes a massive impact. Above all the gravy should positively drip umami. Lots of full, rounded savouriness.
I used a couple of resources to nail the perfect solution. I had to look at how the star of the dish, the onion, was treated. First, which onions? You can get good gravy out of red onions but not for the longish cooking time that I was after. No, it has to be the medium British brown onion. Perfectly round with appealing ivory skin, with a balanced sweet/sharp flavour, it has to be British onions, supporting British farmers. As for the cooking, I stumbled over this fascinating article at Serious Eats which really picked apart caramelizing onions. I gave it a try and I definitely had to incorporate elements of it in the final dish. It allows for delicious, sweet onions with perfect colouring.
I looked to my old pal Heston Blumenthal and his chicken gravy technique, involving roasting off a chicken carcass, separately frying off mushrooms and onions and combining in a pressure cooker with white wine. Personally I wanted a beefier, herbier background so that gave me ideas to use beef bones in the stock. This provides the structure of the dish. Chat up your butcher for some beef bones – if you can’t I find may supermarkets with an instore butcher will sell them for a nominal fee, 20p or so. You don’t need to make the stock yourself necessarily (it’s a bit of a time-hog) but if you have the time it’s amazing.
There’s also an alcoholic backnote I wanted to include: red wine is fairly typical, as is a stout, or my old chum marsala. But I recalled a great onion soup recipe from Giorgio Locatelli where cider was included And it’s perfect because it’s tangy and boozy with fruity hints. It’s the final element that crowns the gravy.
It’s rich, it’s sweet, it’s irresistible. I served mine with a steak and it sure didn’t last long.
Perfect onion gravy (makes about 1 ½ pints):
For the stock:
4 or 5 beef bones
Tablespoon of tomato puree
4 or 5 chestnut mushrooms
1 stick of celery, chopped
1 carrot, chopped
3 onions, halved
Sprig each of thyme and rosemary
Preheat the oven to 170°C. Put the veg in a heavy baking tray and lay the bones on top. Smear the bones all over with tomato puree, then tuck the herbs round and about. Roast the lot in the oven for 30 minutes to give a rich intensity to the stock.
Transfer the lot to a deep pot and cover with water. Bring to the boil and simmer for 1 ½ to 2 hours with a loose fitting lid. Remove the lid and boil hard for half an hour to reduce it down. Transfer to a large bowl or jug and chill until needed.
For the gravy:
1 teaspoon sugar
3 British onions, halved and sliced into half-moons (I recommend using a food processor with medium slicing attachment for uniformity)
1 tablespoon butter
1 star anise
¼ teaspoon baking powder (rarely for me, I advise you to be careful with this measurement as if you overdo this it will be bitter and chemical-tasting)
1 sprig rosemary, finely chopped
300ml Aspall’s organic cider
1 teaspoon English mustard
1 tablespoon flour
Beef stock as above (or 1 ½ pints of your favourite organic beef stock)
In a wide frying pan heat the sugar over a gentle heat until it turns to liquid, and quickly before it burns add the onions, baking powder and butter. Turn the heat up to medium and stir well to coat the onions in sugar and butter. After a minute add the star anise and rosemary. Cook for a further 8 minutes or so until the onions start to turn a lovely shade of brown. Keep stirring to ensure they don’t burn.
Start to deglaze the sticky stuff from the pan with the cider a splash at a time. Don’t add too much as it will reduce the heat in the pan each time. Once the liquid goes add the next splash until it’s all gone. The onions will now be glazed with a gorgeous appley shine.
Add the mustard and flour and stir well to incorporate for a minute. Once all the white bits of flour have gone add the stock and bring to a simmer. Cook for at least another 5 minutes and then reduce until it is the desired consistency, then check the seasoning. Salt and pepper here are crucial, and perhaps a splash of red wine vinegar to balance the tartness. Remove the star anise before serving.
