Recipes

Mini Beef, Ale, and Porcini Pies

Another one for British Pie Week, these mini Beef, Ale, and Porcini Pies are full of flavour with a lovely richness from the bone broth. By the very talented home cook, Leigh Bourne!

Head over to Leigh’s Instagram @the_victorian_cottage for some more of his delicious, hearty, home-cooked meals!

Ingredients

For the Filling

1kg Lean Casserole Steak or Beef

Plain Seasoned Flour (salt and pepper)

Smoked Bacon lardons

15 Baby Onions

1 x 330ml Bottle of Guinness or Stout

500ml Osius Organic Beef Broth with Seaweed

20-30g Dried Porcini Mushrooms

1 tsp Oregano

2 Sprigs Thyme

1 Sprig Rosemary

1 Tbsp Worcester Sauce

1 Tbsp Tomato Puree

Salt & Ground Black Pepper

For the Pastry

300g Plain Flour

150g Cold Butter

Pinch of Salt

Cold Water

3 x mini springform pie tins - 4” diameter

Method

  1. Preheat your oven to 150 degrees celsius.
  2. Put all the beef into the seasoned flour to coat, shake off any excess and fry off in batches until browned, transfer to a large casserole dish. In the same frying pan, brown off the lardons and baby onions and add these to the casserole with the beef.
  3. Deglaze the pan with the Guinness, make sure you get all the brown bits from the bottom of the pan, transfer this to the casserole.
  4. To the casserole dish, add in the Osius Beef & Seaweed Broth, the chopped porcini and soaking liquid, herbs, worcester sauce, tomato purée and a good pinch of salt and black pepper.
  5. Stir through and bring to the boil.
  6. Cover and place in the oven for 2 hours stirring halfway through.
  7. Once cooked, leave to cool completely.
  8. While the filling is cooking, make your pastry.
  9. Add the cold cubed butter to the flour and rub between your fingertips until it resembles breadcrumbs. Add in the salt and enough water to bring to a soft pliable dough, be careful not to overdo the water. Wrap in clingfilm and refrigerate for half an hour.
  10. Once your filling has cooled, remove the pastry from the fridge.
  11. Roll out to about 4mm thick and line your 3 mini tins with pastry, leave a slight overhang, make sure to reserve enough to make the lids for your pies - about a quarter of the original pastry.
  12. Fill the pie casings to the top level with filling, make an egg wash with 1 egg and a splash of milk. Brush the edges of the pie with the egg wash. Place your lids on the top of your pies and press down gently to seal. Trim off the excess pastry and trim the edges. Cut a hole in the top to let out the steam when cooking.
  13. Place in the oven and cook for 45 minutes.
  14. Cool for 5 minutes, release from the tins and brush the sides of the pies with egg wash, place back in the oven for a further 10 minutes to cook you pie sides to a nice golden brown.
  15. Eat hot or cold.