Jeremy Vincent’s steak and mushroom pie recipe and pastry tips

This traditional pie filling is easy to prepare and can be made ahead of time. Plus find out all the tips you need to make the perfect pastry.

Hot treat: You can make these mini steak and mushroom pies at home. Picture: Dannika Bonser

THERE’S nothing better than a homemade meat pie — even better if it’s made using your own favourite pastry recipe.

The trick with the pastry is not to have it too thick, but to leave it just thin enough to hold the filling when the dish is all assembled.

It’s worth investing in some small springform pie dishes which make it all the more easier to prepare your single-serve pies.

Just in case there’s any chance of spillage during the cooking, it pays to put your pies on a baking tray as they go into the oven. No messy oven cleaning, and it’s also easier to pull them out of the oven when they’re done.

STEAK & MUSHROOM PIE

THIS recipe works well when you prepare individual pies, but if you don’t have any individual pie dishes to hand, simply use one large pie dish. This traditional filling is easy to prepare and can be made ahead of time. Add some frozen peas and some carrot batons if you want to make it a little more elaborate.

Makes 6 individual pies

2 tbsp vegetable oil

500g beef, cut into 2cm cubes

4 cloves garlic, finely chopped

2 red onions, finely chopped

500ml beef stock

250g mushrooms, finely sliced

250g shortcrust pastry (you can use puff pastry sheets if you wish)

A generous pinch of salt and ground black pepper

2 egg yolks

Heat a tablespoon of oil in a large frying pan and brown the meat on all sides. You may need to fry the meat in batches in order to get a nice brown colour. Remove from the pan and set aside.

Add the rest of the oil to the pan and fry the garlic and onions until soft. Add the beef stock, meat pieces, salt and pepper and combine. Lower the heat, cover and cook over gentle heat for about 90 minutes. Make sure to give the mix a stir every now and then to prevent it sticking at the bottom. The aim is to get the meat as tender as possible, so you may need to add a longer cooking time depending on the meat you buy. Add more liquid (water will do) if the mixture goes dry before the meat is tender.

Picture: Dannika Bonser

About 10 minutes before the mix is finished cooking, add the finely sliced mushrooms and stir through to combine. Remove from the heat and allow to cool. You can prepare ahead to this stage and refrigerate the mixture for a day or two until you are ready to make your pies. The advantage of this, aside from allowing time in a busy day, is to allow the flavours to develop further through the meat. You can also freeze the mix for even later use.

When ready to cook, preheat the oven to 220C (200C fan).

You can take two options with the pastry when assembling your pie — a lid-only version or a full pastry case. Dust your work surface with a little flour and roll out the pastry to about ½ cm thick. If you are using only a pastry lid, spoon the steak and mushroom filling into your chosen pie dish or dishes and drape over the pastry. Leave about 1cm of pastry over the side of the dish and then push the pastry in to the dish so you end up with a nice crust the whole way round.

If you are completely encasing the filling in pastry, roll out the pastry and carefully line the pie dish. Rather than adding a separate pastry topping, I prefer to allow plenty of overhang and then to fold this neatly on top of the filling, leaving a small central hole. Using a pastry brush, coat the pastry topping with the egg yolk — this will produce a delicious, golden-coloured crust.

Place in the oven for approximately 15-20 minutes or until the pastry turns a nice golden brown. Serve straight away with a salad. These pies also freeze well.

GETTING THE BEST OUT OF YOUR PASTRY

COLD ingredients produce the flakiest crust. Be sure to use very cold butter. In warm weather, it even helps to chill the flour ahead. Cut the butter in until your mixture resembles coarse breadcrumbs. The more you incorporate the butter past that point, the less flaky your crust will be.

IF making a double crust pie (base and lid) it helps to have a little extra dough for the bottom crust. Divide the dough in two, making one part slightly larger than the other.

PASTRY handles better when chilled in a fridge than at room temperature.

YOU can chill pastry in the refrigerator for longer than 40 minutes — up to 2 or 3 days if it is wrapped well. If you do store it this long let it sit at room temperature for 5 or 10 minutes before rolling to allow the dough to become more pliable.

AS a help when transferring a large piece of pastry to the pie dish, roll your pastry on a sheet of lightly floured baking paper. Invert the pastry right over the dish or filling and peel the paper off.

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