Beef, chestnut and mushroom pie

This is perfect Sunday food for when it's cold outside. Leave the filling to cook for a few hours while you sit back with a glass of wine and a good film!

- Season about 500g of beef chuck steak with salt, pepper and plain flour. Brown in batches in olive oil in a deep casserole

- Remove the beef once browned and set aside. Fry a diced onion with a diced celery stick and 2 cloves of minced garlic

- Add the beef back into the pan once the onions have softened a little

- Pour in 250ml of beef stock and 250ml of ale followed by a couple of bay leaves and some fresh thyme. Leave to simmer for around 1.5-2 hours, stirring occasionally

- After 1.5-2 hours add a couple of handfuls of button mushrooms and a large handful of cooked chestnuts and continue to cook for another 20 minutes or so. Check the seasoning and re-adjust if necessary

- Pre-heat the oven to 190 degrees.

- Pour the filling into a pie dish and leave to cool slightly for 15 minutes or so. Then top with your pastry of choice and brush with a beaten egg. Bake in the oven for 25-30 minutes until the pastry is golden

- We served ours with a selection of vegetables

Moroccan lamb filo pie

This is a brillant way of using up bits and pieces from the fridge. You can do all sorts... Moroccan, Indian, Italian, vegetarian... whatever takes your fancy.

In this particular instance we used a small piece of lamb neck fillet, mushrooms, spinach, a sweet potato, courgette, an onion, a small handful of pine nuts and a little bit of feta. Everything was browned and then we added chopped garlic, ginger, a chilli, nutmeg, ground cumin, a little cinammon and some stock. We left it to simmer for 20 minutes or so until the potato was soft.

Allow the filling to cool a little and then you can build the pie in a loose bottomed cake tin. Overlap 6 sheets of filo pastry so that half of each slice is outside the tin perimeter, then spoon the filling into the middle. Fold over the filo sheets and scrunch to form a lid. Brush the top with a little oil before baking in a pre-heated oven for approx 20-30 minutes. Serve with appropriate accompaniments... with this we had a tomato chutney and salad.

Cheese, onion and potato pie

Basically a pimped up cheese and onion pasty.

Ingredients: serves 3-4 with accompaniments
1 large onion, diced
3 medium sized potatoes, peeled and chopped into small chunks
A couple of large handfuls of grated cheese (whatever you have available, we used cheddar and a little parmesan)
1 large tbl sp of soft cheese
Leaves from 3 thyme sprigs
1 bay leaf
½ glass of white wine
1 pack of puff pastry
1 egg
Olive oil
Knob of butter
Salt and pepper

• Pre-heat the oven to 170 degrees.
• Take the puff pastry out of the fridge so that it comes to room temperature.
• Melt the butter in a large non-stick frying pan and add a little olive oil.
• Add the diced onion and allow to cook for 5 minutes until soft.
• Add the diced potato and continue to cook for 10 minutes, stirring often so the potatoes don’t stick.
• Add the wine, thyme and bay leaf and allow to simmer until the wine has almost completely evaporated.
• Check that the potato chunks are tender, if not, continue to cook for another few minutes.
• Remove the bay leaf and pour the potato/onion mixture into a large bowl. Add the grated cheese and soft cheese, and season to taste with salt and pepper. Stir everything well.
• Line an oven tray with greased baking parchment.
• Cut the puff pastry in half (or use circles if you prefer a circular pie) and place one half on the baking parchment.
• Tip the cheesy potato and onion mixture on top of the pastry and use a spoon to spread it out evenly. Leave a 1cm gap around the edge.
• Lay the other half of the pastry on top, and pinch the edges to seal the two layers. Score a couple of lines across the top of the pie to allow steam to escape and egg wash the top and edges if you like.
• Cook in the pre heated oven for approximately 30 minutes until golden brown.
• We had ours with a pile of pea shoots but it would be good with any salad or green veg to counter balance the carb overload.

Venison pie

We bought the venison from Alternative Meats (see website below). It was as good as all the other meat we've tried from there. This was very filling so we just served it with extra veg and a little extra gravy. It smelled and tasted fantastic!

Ingredients:

500g diced venison

white onion, diced

2 cloves of garlic, diced

pack of mushrooms, sliced

1 carrot, diced,

2 sticks of celery, diced

tea spoon of dried thyme

tbl spoon of redcurrant jelly

tbl spoon of plain flour

200ml red wine

200ml beef stock

100ml port

olive oil

salt and pepper

• Marinade the venison in the wine and port overnight
• Remove the meat from the marinade and pat it dry with a paper towel. Add the flour to the meat and mix thoroughly. Season with salt and pepper.
• Brown the venison in a little oil in a large non-stick saucepan, in stages if necessary.
• Remove the browned meat from the pan and set aside. Fry the onion, garlic, carrot, celery and mushrooms for 5 minutes or so.
• Add the venison back into the pan, followed by the herbs, marinade liquid and stock.
• Leave to simmer on a low heat for about 1.5 hrs. Add the redcurrant jelly and cook for another 30 minutes.
• Pre-heat the oven to about 200 degrees. Line a pie dish with shortcrust pastry so that it covers the bottom and the sides.
• Spoon the venison filling into the pie dish before placing another piece of pastry on top and pinching the edges to seal it. Egg wash the top of the pie before putting it in the pre-heated oven for around 30 minutes.

Meat & potato pie

Ingredients (serves 4):

shortcrust pastry

2 onions, diced

2 garlic cloves, diced

2 large potatoes, grated

1 large carrot, grated

2 celery sticks, diced

250g minced beef

bay leaf

small handful of thyme leaves

1 beef oxo cube

2 tbl sp tomato ketchup

2 tbl sp Worcestershire sauce

olive oil

salt and pepper

100ml hot water

• Pre heat the oven to 200 degrees
• Fry the onion, garlic, carrot, potato and celery in olive oil until soft
• Add the beef and brown
• Add the Worcestershire sauce, ketchup, thyme and bay leaf, follwed by the oxo cube dissolved in the water
• Turn the heat down to a low heat, season and leave to simmer for 30 minutes, then allow to cool slightly
• Line a pie dish with shortcrust pasrty and add the cooled mince mixture. Add a lid of shortcrust pastry and brush with egg or milk and some extra thyme leaves.
• Cook the pie for approximately 30-40 minutes until golden brown on top.
• Serve with whatever you like... mash or chips, extra veg and gravy

Rabbit and rosemary pie

As the weather has been a bit rubbish recently we decided that a pie was in order for a rainy Saturday night in. Apart from a pastry disaster (and a quick trip to Sainsburys for some ready made stuff!) it was pretty easy really.

Ingredients (serves 2):

300g diced wild rabbit (we got ours from Waitrose)
plain flour, for dusting
a couple of rosemary sprigs, finely chopped

tea spoon dried thyme

4 shallots, diced

1 clove garlic, chopped

1/2 pack chestnut mushrooms, sliced

2 slices of pancetta, diced

1 bay leaf

1/2 tea spoon dijon mustard

200ml chicken stock

200ml white wine

pastry (puff or shortcrust)
olive oil

egg

1. Pre heat the oven to approx 150 degrees.


2. Dust the rabbit with flour, salt and pepper, and brown in a hot pan, then set aside.


3. Fry the shallots, garlic, pancetta and mushrooms until soft, add the browned rabbit meat.


4. Add the herbs and bay leaf, followed by the stock, wine and mustard. Cook on a high heat for a few minutes to cook off some of the alcohol.
   
5. Transfer the rabbit mixture into an oven proof dish, cook in a low oven for 1 1/2 to 2 hours, stirring occasionally. The liquid content should have reduced by 1/2 to 3/4. Turn the oven up to 200 degrees once you've taken the filling out.
   
6. Prepare the pastry (we won't give suggestions here after our dreadful attempt!).


7. Transfer the filling into a pie dish and top with pastry. Egg wash the pastry top and put in the hot oven for approx 30 minutes.

We didn't feel that it needed extra gravy but you could have some if you wanted. The pie was very rich and full of flavour, so we had it with plain boiled new potatoes and steamed asparagus.