Steak and stout pie

There's a storm brewin'.

Actually, it's already been and gone, and as the picture below shows, caused absolute CHAOS to the streets of London.

Still, whilst it's wet and cold and blowy and autumnal, we'll carry on the theme of warming, comfort food.  Last week it was toad in the hole.  This week, it's steak and stout pie.  Perfect for when it's belting it down outside and you want to wrap yourself up in a blanket and watch endless repeats of old crap on telly.

This is also a really easy recipe that requires (a) no flour dredging (there's a cheat later that avoids this) and (b) no browning of the meat, both of which take ages and are a faff to do.  Fortunately, the absence of both these elements doesn’t seem to compromise the pie one bit.

A word to the wise, however: this massively benefits from being allowed to cool down and sit in the fridge overnight.  It also takes an unreasonably long time to cook.  So plan ahead.

Ingredients:

1.2kg cow (Kinda up to you what you put in – brisket, stewing steak, ox cheek, shin, whatever you like.  I used plain old casserole steak.)

500ml stout (I used Guinness.  I reckon you could use any ale, however, or even red wine.)

200g button chestnut mushrooms

x3 onions

x2 carrots

x2 sticks of celery

x3 cloves of garlic

x4 sprigs of rosemary

2tsp grainy mustard

2tbsp plain flour

x1 stock cube (Or, better still, 500ml fresh cow stock.  Up to you – but you will need the additional liquid, as I learnt...)

Ready-rolled puff pastry (Because life's too short to make your own pie crusts.  Genuinely.)

x1 free-range egg

1. Start by chopping all your veg.  No, actually, start by pre-heating the oven to 190°C.  Now get chopping. 

None of needs to be finely chopped, just into decent suitably pie-sized lumps.  I reckon a little smaller than the cow chunks will be.  The mushrooms I quartered, because they shrink a bit and I like big lumps of mushroom with this dish.  You can mix your carrots, mushrooms and celery sticks together, but keep the onions ghettoised.  Same goes for the garlic (slice this) and the rosemary (separate the leaves and chop finely).

2. Sweat the onions for 10 mins or so in a bloody great big cast iron pan.  Or whatever you'd normally make a stew in.  Keep going until them onions are nice and soft, but not browned.  A low heat should do the trick.

3. Turn the heat right up and thrown in the carrots, 'shrooms and celery, giving everything an almighty stir and season liberally with pepper and less liberally with salt (remember: you're adding a stock cube and/or stock to this, which is quite salty in itself, so go easy on the salt at this stage – you can always adjust later). 

Cook for a few minutes.  Or not.  Whatever.

4. Chuck in the steak, garlic and rosemary and cook for a bit, so that the meat is beginning to colour.  This shouldn’t take long. 

5. When you're happy, add the stout.  It'll fizz up like crazy, but fear not: it'll settle down before long. 

Add the mustard, sprinkle the flour in, and crumble the stock cube in now, if you're using it.   Boil a kettle and top up with boiling water so that the meat's covered – it you're using beef stock, warm it and add it now instead of the hot water – but again, only so that the meat's covered. 

6. Give it an almighty great stir, stick a lid on the pot and bung it in the oven for about an hour.  By the way, you might find that the four clumps up into rather unappealling, gluely lumps.  Fret not - these will magically disappear in the cooking, somehow.

7. Get it out, give it another stir, and have a look.  First, there should be lots of mucky brown crap stuck to the sides.  Good.  This is the flavour, so do your best to scrape it off with a spoon and reintroduce it to its friends in the stew.  Second, check the moisture levels.  I found that mine dried out quite quickly, which isn’t a problem – it just means you need to keep adding more liquid – kettle water will do it, honestly.  Cover it again and get it back in the oven to give it another hour.

8. Lather, rinse, repeat.  Well, get out, scrape, stir, check moisture levels.  Also, try a bit of the beef now – see how tender it is.  It should be fall-apart-in-your-mouth soft, not chewy.  Mine took three hours altogether, and could perhaps have done with a touch more.  From here on in I recommend testing it every 30-40 minutes – adding more water each time if it’s looking a little dry.  As for dryness, well, you know what the inside of a pie looks like, right?

9. Once it's done, leave it to cool and stick in the fridge overnight.  Apart from the fact that this'll let all the lovely flavours marinate and mix better, it'll also mean that the filling is cool when you want to make your pie, which will make life a lot, lot easier.  Get it out before making the pie, though, so that the filling is at room temperature when you stick the lid on.

10. Doing the lid is easy, because I told you to get ready rolled puff pastry.  If you want to make your own pastry, go and read someone else's blog – like someone who knows how to bake (I am a terrible baker).  I have tried handmade puff pastry and I have tried Sainsbury's pastry puff, and whilst I recognise that there is a difference and that the handmade stuff is better, I simply cannot be bothered with it – simply because the difference is so minor.

Unroll your pastry and stick the pie dish on it upside down.  Trace a line around the dish, leaving about a centimetre of overhang.  Like this. 

Keep the scraps, too – you'll need them.

11. Fill the dish up with filling and gravy, until it's about a half centimetre from the top. Pop the lid on and pinch all the way around the edges to make sure the lid stays in place.  Carve a little cross in the middle to let the steam out. 

Also, decorate it – that's what the pastry scraps are for.  I was a bit rushed, so it was just leaves.  But it's bad luck not to decorate it.  The tradition comes from big, old houses (think Downton Abbey) where they would have a weekly baking day, making all manner of pies.  To ensure that there was no confusion, and that the lord of the manor was not accidently served kidney and trotter pasty when he was expecting a mouthful of apple and bramble pudding, savoury pies were decorated whilst sweet pies were just sprinkled with sugar.  Preserve the tradition and stick a blooming leaf on there.

The crust needs to be egged.  So break an egg into a glass or cup, beat it up with a fork, and use a pasrty brush to paint it all.  All of it, not just bits.  It'll only turn nice and shiny where it's been painted, so get in all the nooks and crannies.  Also, top tip: paint the lid then put the decorations on - it'll help them stick down. 

12. Pie in oven, please.  It'll take 30 mins, no more – just check that your pastry looks crispy and golden. 

So, basically, it goes in like this...

...and comes out like this.

Serve it up with peas, or your favourite winter veg.  Draw the curtains, get the fire going, turn on some ancient, Sunday afternoon TV film, pour yourself a glass of something red and dark, and tuck in.  See, the weather's not so bad now, is it?

 - GrubsterBoy -

Damson Gin

If you’ve been lurking around in the country recently, you may well have come across a bush covered in what looks like lots of little, purple plums.  If you’ve been particularly foolhardy, you may have plucked one and given it a try, spitting out the flesh that is described as having a “distinctive, somewhat astringent taste”.  If this sounds like you, then you’ve probably stumbled upon a damson bush.  They look a bit like this:

If Edwin Starr questioned “war, what is it good for?” then, over the years, I expect many a horticulturalist has asked the same of the damson.  Fortunately, unlike Edwin’s refrain, ‘quite a lot’ is the answer.

Growing wild in abundance throughout its native England, the humble damson is – in most cases, although I’m told that there are some sweeter varieties – inedible in their raw state.  They have, therefore, become the subject of countless pickles, chutneys, preserves, jams, etc.  GrubsterMummy, for example, does an exceptional in canned damsons, stewing them in all manner of spices, sugars and vinegars, which then preserve them, seemingly for time immemorial, ready to be dug out and applied liberally to any cold meat or hard cheese.

I am not, GrubsterMummy, however, so when I hear of damsons my mind immediately drifts to gin.  That’s right, damson gin. 

A bit like sloe gin, but without quite as much sugar (the humble damson, despite it’s tartness, being slightly sweeter than the acrid sloe), steeping damsons in cheap gin for an unreasonable period will create a delightful liqueur.  Here’s how:

Ingredients:

150g granulated sugar

500g damsons

75cl gin (or vodka, which I did last year.  I’ll let you know which one’s better once this has matured!)

You’re also going to need a big ass kilner jar for this – at least 1.5 litres.  The damsons take up quite a lot of room, and you got to get a whole bottle of gin in there.  To give you an idea, the jar I use in the pictures is 3 litres – and I’m doubling the recipe (and adding a little bit, but whatever).

A word on sourcing damsons (it’s not like you’ll find them on the supermarket shelf): A colleague at work recently bemoaned a glut of damsons she was living through, so I got mine free.  If you have access to a bit of country, you might be able to forage – but (a) make sure you’re absolutely certain you’re picking damsons – never, never, never eat something wild if you’re not positive what it is; and (b) please ask before stripping other people’s fruit trees!  You never know, they may be just about to do the same thing...

By the way, this recipe is adapted from Cottage Smallholder, which is a fantastic blog if you're in the mood for making any kind of fruit-based liquer.  If you want to do it, chances are that Fiona's got there first.

1. Wash the damsons, discarding any that have split or are badly bruised, and let them dry on a tea towel.  Simultaneously, sterilize the jar.  The easiest way to do this, I find, is to pre-heat the oven to 130°C, wash the jar well in hot water, and let dry.  Once dry, remove the rubber seal, and leave the jar upside down in the oven for 20 minutes.  Remove (with oven gloves!) and leave somewhere safe to cool.  Careful to avoid getting your grubby mitts all over it now...

2.  Each damson needs to be pricked, which is a right pain.  Just wait until we do sloe gin, though – they’re a lot smaller, and there are a lot more of them, so count ya blessings.  I find that gripping each one top and tail and revolving it whilst stabbing it with a fork is both an efficient and satisfying approach.  Drop each one into the jar once pricked.

3.  Add the gin and the sugar, seal the puppy up (don’t forget the rubber seal) and give it a good shake.  Keep those gin bottles (seriously).

On the gin front, I just used the budget version from Sainsburys.  I genuinely think that this recipe gains absolutely nothing from spending a lot on gin.

4. For the first few weeks it needs to be agitated every day or so.  I don’t mean that you need to make rude jokes about it and shove it around the playground – that’s a different kind of agitation.  No, it needs to be gentle mixed – I do this by rocking it back and forth.  You’ll notice the colour change each day as you go through the process.

Left to right: Zero days, one day, three days, one week.

Agitate regularly until there’s no more sugar residue at the bottom of the jar.

5. Wait.

6. No, seriously.  You need to wait at least three months now – preferably six.  Make sure your jar is kept in a cool, dark place.  We use the cupboard under the stairs – no need for a wine cellar or anything like that, although if have one it can't hurt.

7. In three months time, remember it’s still there.  This is actually harder than it sounds – last year I forgot it for nine months.   Oops.  Still, no harm done – although I’m told that  forgetting about it can lead to it taking on a nasty, metallic almond flavour – which, presumably, it gets from the stones.  So try to remember it. 

8. Once you have remembered, pass it through a muslin cloth.  Resist the temptation to squeeze it – otherwise you’ll end up with a lot of nasty gunk at the bottom of your bottle.  Then bottle it – you see why I had you keep the bottles?  But, here’s the rub: the liqueur is now all of the gin plus the damson juice and the sugar.  So it aint never gonna fit in your original bottle.  So make sure you’re prepared for this – by sourcing a spare bottle.

9. Wait.  Again.

10. No, seriously, wait again.  It needs to mature in the bottle.  Hey, I never said this was a quick process, did I?  No, you’re basically making 2013 vintage for winter 2014.  Another 3 months or so as a bare minimum should do the trick.

And that’s it.  Stick the stuff in bottles and give it as Christmas presents, or just glug it down.

 - GrubsterBoy - 

Toad in the Hole

Jeez, it's gotten cold all of a sudden.  In fact, there's something distinctly autumnal in the air.  Time for comfort food.

 

One of my all-time favourite comfort foods has got to be toad in the hole.  Sure, a decent steak pie (of which I am quite the connoisseur, I'll have you know) hits the spot every time.  But a good old toad is just somehow the pinnacle.  It's probably because it's so terribly, terribly bad for you, I expect – being, as it is, basically a massive Yorkshire pud full of fatty pork.  Still, served up with lashings of gravy, it's just too good to miss.

 

I make mine with caramelised, sticky onions in, as I think it lifts the dish somehow (and I have a very, very sweet tooth.  Try it.  Others mix in all sorts, whether it be sage or mustard seeds.  It's completely your thing to try, so let your imagination run away with you.

 

Ingredients:

 

This is the worst ingredients picture ever, because it basically is missing half the ingredients.  Like the beer.  And the milk.  And all the stuff I made the fake gravy out of.  Oh well.

Toad:

 

x8 good quality bangers

(I used a four each of herb and Cumberland, to make it more interesting, but it's really whatever you want.)

 

Hole:

x2 Large White Onions
1tbs Demerara Sugar
150g Plain Flour
x2 Eggs
85 ml Whole Milk
85 ml Beer

 

Veg:

(Whatever you like, really – let's not be prescriptive.  I went for autumnal veg, coz I'm basically feeling autumnal.)

 
Curly Kale
Parsnips
Carrots

 

1. Get the veg on.  This'll take way longer than you think it will.  I had about five each of the parsnips and the carrots – one each, plus one for luck.  Chopped into big-ish batons, covered in olive oil, liberally seasoned with salt & pepper and sprinkled with thyme (I had some leftover in the fridge).  Oh, and I threw a few cloves of garlic crushed with the back of a big knife in there too, for good measure.  Roast them in the oven at 180°C for 45 mins (give or take – so keep an eye on them), tossing them every so often.

 

They go in like this...

...and come out like this.

As for the kale, you can steam that in the last 5 minutes of cooking the toad.

 

2. Brown your bangers in a frying pan.  Don’t worry, you're not creating more washing up because we're going to fry other stuff in this pan too. 

 

 

Once browned (don’t worry, they don’t need to be cooked) remove and set to one side.

 

3. Slice the onions into thin strips, about half a centimetre wide.  Get 'em in the pan.  Keep the heat medium – you're trying to soften and caramelise them, not make crispy onions.  This isn’t a burger.  Also, don’t worry if they don’t really fit in the pan, they'll shrink.

 

 

Just keep stirring them every so often, and watch for crispiness.  Bad crispiness.

 

4. Meanwhile, make the batter.  Crack the eggs into a big bowl and whisk with an electric hand whisk.  Then add the milk and flour alternately – I have some nifty shot measurements, so did 25 ml milk followed by a tablespoon of flour, etc.  Keep whisking throughout if possible – fortunately I had a GrubsterGirl on hand to help me. 

 

 

Action shot!

 

When you've got through it all you should have a trick, stodgy batter.  Fear not.  Add your beer now, again, bit by bit by bit, folding it into the batter.  You don’t want to lose the fizz.

 

 

By the way, I used Fursty Ferret from Badger Beers (the naughty brewery who, hilariously, apparently move goalposts).  Now, a batter is much too good a use for this fantastic ale, but fortunately you'll be left with tonnes of it, and it washes down a toad in the hole beautifully.

 

 

5. Once the batter is done, it needs to sit for 15 minutes.  This is the perfect time to get the roasting tin warned in the oven at 220°C.  Glug in a good 3-4 tablespoons of oil – I usually use sunflower, but apparently dripping works well.  I just think that GG will dump me if I start cooking with dripping.  By the way, always use a roasting tin – it gets much hotter than a ceramic dish, so the Yorkshire ends up rising higher and being crispier.  A friend uses a huge cast iron dish for this, which she says works a treat – I've tried it, and can confirm, but it obviously takes a lot longer to get really hot, which is what you want it to be when the batter goes in.

 

Give it 5-10 minutes to make sure it gets really hot, then add the sausages for a few minutes. 

 

Just a safety note here: hot fat is hot.  I mean really bloody hot.  So be careful: it will spit when anything is added to it.

 

6. By now your onions should be done perfectly, but if they got done sooner bring them back up to temperature.  Once hot, sprinkle the sugar over them and give them a good stir, so that the sugar melts and the onions end up coated in oniony caramel.  Resist the urge to eat it all now, this stuff tastes bloody amazing.

 

7. Get the roasting tin out.  The fat should be smoking (literally) hot.  Carefully add the onions, so that they are spread all over the sausages and the tin, like this:

 

 

Now pour the batter over, like this:

 

 

Push any onions off so they're not sticking out of the batter too much, otherwise they'll burn.  Now, get the damn thing in the oven, PDQ.

 

Oh, a word on timing.  This was based on a recipe that said 35 minutes, which was a lie.  I could have had this out at 25 mins and probably had it better.  So it ended up a little sunburnt.  Which I'm pretty damn cross about.  Tasted good, though.

 

 

Serve the whole thing up – root veg, steamed kale, toad in the hole.  Cover it with gravy – make your own, buy some in, whatever.  I used a Knorr Stockpot cheat, which was actually very impressive.  I split the water used to dissolve the little fella 50/50 with red wine, which was a real plus.  

 

 - GrubsterBoy -