This Hearty Beef and Mushroom Pie will take center stage on your family dinner table, for sure. It is big, it is bold and taste absolutely scrumptious.

My Hearty Beef and Mushroom Pie is robust. It is a beef and mushroom stew with a light-as-a-feather puff pastry lid. The best part of this pie is that the oven does all the work. Well, that is if you take a short cut, if you want to push your own culinary boundaries, the rough puff pastry is a perfect beginning. The result is layers of super thin, buttery pastry that melts in your mouth.

Let’s begin with the rough puff.

Rough Puff Pastry

makes enough for 1 large pie

Ingredients

200 g flour

4 ml salt

200 g cold butter – cut in small cubes

about 100 ml ice water

Method

Sift the flour and salt into a large bowl.

Use a knife to cut the ice cold butter into small chunks into the cake flour.

Break the butter into the flour until smaller chunks of butter form by using a pastry cutter or a knife. The butter pieces must still be recognizable.

Add a spoon full of cold water at a time to the flour mixture and then use a knife to cut the water into the dough. Bring the flour/butter and water mixture together with your hands. It is very important not to overwork or knead the dough.

Scrape the mixture onto a piece of cling wrap, shape it into a rectangle, cover it well and put it into the freezer to rest for 15 minutes.

Turn the pastry out on a lightly floured board; push it together to form a good rectangular shape. Dust the top of the pastry lightly with flour and dust the rolling pin lightly with flour.

Roll the dough in ONE direction only to form a rectangle with proportions 1:3 width to the length. Keep the edges straight and neat.

Fold the top third of the length of the dough over towards the bottom and the bottom third over the top third.

Give the dough a quarter turn (to the left or right) and roll out again to three times the length. Fold as before.

Repeat 5-6 times. Dust the surface, dough and rolling pin when needed.

Fold as before cover with cling wrap and rest in the freezer for 15 minutes.

When ready to make your pie, roll the pastry until 3mm in thickness, in a rectangle to fit your pie dish.

1 egg for egg wash

Hearty Beef Stew

makes enough for 1 big pie to serve 6-8

Ingredients

1.5 – 2 kg beef shin of beef rib

45 ml olive oil

2 large onions – roughly chopped

1 bulb garlic

3-4 carrots – cleaned and finely diced

2 celery sticks – finely chopped

1-2 chilies – optional

750 ml Fairview Piekenierskloof Grenache

250 ml beef stock

3 bay leaves

2 sprigs rosemary

400 g brown mushrooms

125 ml fresh peas – optional

2 x 100 g tomato paste

15 ml flour

15 ml sugar

salt and pepper to taste

Method

Preheat oven to 180 C. Heat the oil in a cast iron pot and brown the meat in batches. Remove the meat from the pot. Sauté the onions, carrots and celery in the same pot until the onions are translucent. Add the meat back to the pot. Now add the wine, stock, chilies, garlic (whole),bay leaves and rosemary. Season with salt and pepper. Place the lid on the pot and put the pot in the oven and cook the stew for 2 hours. By now the meat should be soft and falling off the bone. Remove all the bones and squeeze the soft garlic from the skins. Place the pot back on the stove and bring to the boil. Check for liquid, if at this point, if the meat looks dry to you, add a little water or stock.

Mix the flour and sugar into the tomato paste and stir into the stew. Place the whole mushrooms in the stew and bring to the boil again. You do not have to cook the mushrooms completely, they will get a chance to cook under the paste blanket. Just remember, you want a saucy stew. Taste and season to taste. Spoon the stew into a rectangle pie dish and allow to cool completely. Add the peas to the stew.

Preheat oven to 200 C. To make sure your pastry sticks to the pie dish, you can use egg wash and paint the edge of the pie dish.  Lay the pastry over the stew and cut the excess pastry off around the edge. Crimp the edge with your fingers or a fork to make a patter. For a puffed up, golden brown pie, brush the pastry with egg wash and bake for 20-25 minutes. Serve with stewed peaches or vegetables of your choice.

PS: If the rough puff pastry is too overwhelming for you, buy 2 rolls of puff pastry and make magic. Do not stress!

Follow me on: