Craft Pie

It was the final Saturday in June, the heatwave had subsided and the fresher weather had come in. It was perfect weather to walk in to get away from it all. Then the familiar, deliberate thud of my mobile phone sounded and meant it was ringing. I saw the identity of the caller and my heart sank a little. It was a call that shouldn't have been necessary but it was a call I could have worked hard to stop had I known better.

I unpacked my picnic bag and decided to rain check my planned walk. I then sat in the kitchen disbelieving for a time. Eventually I pulled myself together and wandered aimlessly through the fields near my house with the dog.

When something hits you between the eyes and knocks you back I find the best things to do are go on a long walk and do some cooking. On my return home I decided to modify a steak pie recipe by adding some vegetables to it and some craft beer that a very good and longstanding mate of mine had introduced me to in the last year.

The ingredients for the pie were as follows:

A pack of diced beef.
Two tablespoons of dried Oregano.
A tablespoon of Tomato Puree.
Half a diced White Onion.
Three Spring Onions, topped, tailed, peeled and sliced thinly.
Two Carrots, topped, tailed, peeled and diced.
Eight ounces of fresh Broad Beans.
A stubby can of Piston Head Lager.
Half a pint  of Vegetable Stock.

The method I used was as follows:

1.I fried the beef, vegetables, Tomato Puree and Oregano for twenty minutes in my Le Cresceut in Olive Oil.

2. I then after twenty minutes added the Piston Head Lager. Then I stewed the ingredients for another twenty minutes until the Lager had almost all been absorbed.

3. Next I added the stock and stewed the ingredients for another forty minutes.

4. In the meantime I made the Short Crust pastry in two parts. The first part was for the bottom and I used ten ounces of Plain Flour and five of Butter with a little Milk to bind the Pastry together. The top half of the pie was created with eight ounces of Plain Flour and four of Butter and a little Milk.

5. I rolled out the bottom bit of Shortcrust Pastry and spread it in a greased pie dish.

6. I then put in  the filling from the Le Cresceut and then covered it with the top part of the Shortcrust Pastry once I'd rolled it out. I left some holes to let the heat out.

7. I cooked the pie for 30 minutes on gas mark 6.

It was an exceptionally flavoursome pie as the Craft Lager and the Oregano helped bring out the taste of the Beef and the fresh Carrot and Broadbeans. It certainly filled me up as I watched the series climax of one of the best episodes of the New Doctor Who for some time.

The remainder of the pie was packaged up and served as my picnic lunch on a walk through the wet moors the following day. It tasted just as good, if not better, than it had fresh out of the oven. As I looked over the hills I could see a storm gathering around the tall tower blocks guarding the city I would need to head over to at the start of the working week. I knew one thing though; a storm may have been coming but I was good enough to sort out the issues that awaited me...

Life of Pie: a cross-section showing the meat and vegetables hiding underneath the crisp pastry.