Beef, Ale and Mushroom Pie
Ingredients:
1500g Beef Brisket (to dice at home)Vegetable Oil
Dried Porcini Mushrooms
2 Onions
4 Garlic Cloves
3 Large Carrots
1tsp Caster Sugar
2tbsp Flour
1 bottle Dark Ale (e.g. Black Sheep Ale)
2 Beef Stock Pots
2 Bay Leaves
Thyme (Either a few sprigs of Thyme or a scattering of dried)
200g Bacon Lardons
300g Chestnut Mushrooms
2 packets pre rolled Short Crust Pastry
1 Egg
Method:
- Firstly, pull the beef out of the freezer the night before you want to cook the pie mix up. Bring the beef and bacon to room temperature half an hour before you want to cook as this will give you a better result.
- Put the dried porcini mushrooms in a deep bowl and cover with boiling water. Allow these to soak for 20 minutes.
- Whilst the mushrooms are soaking, heat a large saucepan, season the beef with salt and a little oil. Seal off the beef in small batches to ensure it does not boil. Put in a bowl and cover with a plate until needed.
- Dice the onions and sweat off in the pan, halfway through add in the minced garlic.
- Add a drop of the ale to de-glaze the pan and so the onions can soak up all the deliciousness.
- Add in the sliced and quartered carrots and cook for 5 minutes or so to get some colour.
- Add in the porcini mushrooms then sprinkle over the sugar and flour. Stir until browned and all the juices have been soaked up.
- Tip back in the meat and any juices left in the bowl. Followed by the rest of the bottle of ale, add in the 2 beef stock pots and the liquor from the mushrooms.
- Do not pour out all the juices from the mushrooms as there may be grit at the bottom.
- Season with salt and pepper, add in the bay leaves and thyme.
- Give the pot a good stir.
- Bring the pan up to a boil and then reduce the heat to a simmer.
- Cook for an hour and a half, covered, stirring occasionally to ensure it does not stick to the bottom of the pan.
- In a frying pan, brown off the bacon lardons until crisp and then add in the sliced mushrooms.
- Remove from the heat and let the mushrooms cook through with the residual heat.
- Add a splash of water just to get those nuggets of flavour from the lardons up.
- After the beef has cooked remove from the heat and add in the bacon and lardon mix.
- Stir and allow the pot to cool over night to use the next day.
- The pie can either be cooked with the mix at room temperature or cold, it doesn't really matter which.
- Liberally butter and flour a pie dish, trim the pastry up leaving a lip on the sides, add in the pie mix with a slotted spoon as you may have more liquid than needed.
- The meat should pile up just over the top of the pie dish.
- Pour over enough of the beef mix juice to halfway up the pie dish.
- Brush the edges of the pie with water and place the other sheet of pastry over the top.
- Pinch the sides together, make 2 incisions in the middle of the pie to let out steam.
- Do feel free to decorate the pie.
- Mix an egg and cover the top of the pie liberally, this will ensure the pie goes a gorgeous golden-brown colour.
- Place the pie in a preheated oven at 200°C and cook the pie for 40 minutes, or until golden brown. Serve up with extra gravy and a side of buttery mash potato.
Wagyu Beef Pie
Ingredients:
500g of Diced Wagyu Beef3 x Spring Onions
50g Ginger
2 x Garlic Cloves
2 x Birds Eye Chillies
2 x sachets of Miso (around 36g)
200ml Sake
150ml Mirin
1tsp Brown Sugar
Soy Sauce to Taste
1tsp Sesame Oil
Pinch of Maldon Salt
6 x Sheets of Spring Roll Pastry or Filo
1 x Egg (made into Egg Wash)
Method:
- Defrost the diced Wagyu and bring up to room temperature 30 minutes before cooking.
- In a bowl mix together the diced wagyu and sesame oil and a pinch of Maldon salt.
- Heat up a deep based saucepan and seal off the diced Wagyu in batches to ensure you do not boil the meat.
- Remove the meat into a bowl and cover.
- Slice the spring onions thinly at an angle and sweat off in the saucepan.
- Add in finely chopped garlic and chillies.
- Depending on how hot you like food keep the seeds or get rid of them.
- When they have all sweated down add in the sake and boil rapidly until reduced.
- Add the Wagyu beef back in and then add the mirin, brown sugar, and soy sauce.
- Taste it here and see how it tastes, you may need to add in some more soy sauce.
- Reduce the heat and let simmer for around half an hour.
- Let cool overnight.
- In a pie dish you want to lay out 4 pieces of the spring roll pastry, so they overlap in the middle but is a lot of overhang.
- Using a pastry brush lightly brush each sheet with egg wash.
- After putting the pastry and making sure there are not any gaps on the bottom, add in the Wagyu mix.
- Using the overhang of the pastry, loosely fold over the top.
- Using the other 2 sheets of the pastry brush with egg wash and then tear into strips. Place the strips loosely on top as well ensuring all the meat is encased.
- Cook in a preheated oven at 180°C for 12 - 14 minutes or until the pastry is golden brown.
- Serve and watch your guests go wide eye whilst they enjoy the fantastic flavours wrapped up in crisp pastry.
How to cook Iberico Pork Cheeks
Ingredients:
1 pack Meat Me At Home Iberico Pork Cheeks3 lugs Extra Virgin Olive Oil
4 Carrots
2 Onions
3 Celery stalks
Fresh Thyme
2 Bay leaves
Dash of Smoked paprika
2 tablespoons flour
250ml Red wine
250ml Beef or Veal stock
Salt and pepper to taste
Method:
- Brown the cheeks with a couple of lugs of EVO.
- Take the cheeks out of the pan.
- Add carrots, onions, celery, thyme and bay leaf to the pan.
- Fry that up for a couple of minutes and then return the cheeks to the pan.
- Add smoked paprika and a couple of spoonfuls of flour to make a roux.
- Add some red wine and some beef or veal stock
- Simmer on the stovetop for about 3 hours.
- After 3 hours, take the cheeks out of the pan, bring the liquid back to a boil to reduce liquid to half the amount.
- Take out or leave the vegetables in the sauce to serve and add salt and pepper to taste.
Stir Fry - Cooking Tips
Products to use: Iberico Pork Boneless Collar Neck, Choice US Grain Fed Beef Chuck Short Ribs
- Cut the meat into a suitable size for stir fry. When stir-frying any sliced meat, it is important to marinate it first.
- Traditionally we will marinate in soy, Chinese rice wine and potato starch. Leave to marinate for 30 minutes before blanching in hot oil.
- Drain the sliced meat from the oil.
- Set aside.
- Stir fry all the other ingredients in your stir fry and add the sliced meat just before serving.
Dim Sum
Products to use: Freedown Hills UK Olive Fed Wagyu Mince
- Minced meat: just add Chinese rice wine, salt, pepper, sugar, and add a little water which will loosen it when it cooks and will prevent you from getting an overly firm meatball in the middle of the dumpling.
- Add chopped spring onion and minced ginger for aroma in the minced meat mixture.
- Be adventurous, add any other chopped vegetables that you like, the classical additions are spring onion, ginger, coriander, chilli, bamboo shoots, water chestnuts.
Pork Shabu-Shabu Rolls with Yakiniku Sauce
Products to use: MMAH’s Pork Shabu-Shabu / Sukiyaki (500g)
Serves 4-5
Preparation: 5 minutes
Cooking time: 3 minutes
Preparation of the Yakiniku sauce:
Mix all the ingredients below in a pan, bring to a boil and remove from the heat.
Soya sauce: 125ml
Mirin: 75ml
Sugar: 75g
Vinegar: 10ml
Honey: 25g
Chopped garlic: 5g
Sesame oil: 25ml
Preparation of Shabu-Shabu Pork rolls:
Ingredients:
MMAH’s Pork Shabu-Shabu / Sukiyaki (500g)
Abalone mushrooms julienne (250g)
White wine (120ml)
Yakiniku sauce (80ml)
Method:
- Lay two or three slices of pork length-ways and side by side on a flat surface.
- Place some of the mushrooms on the pork slices and roll the pork around the mushrooms.
- Place the pork rolls in a baking dish and pour over white wine.
- Cook for 3 minutes at 180 degrees, then add the Yakiniku sauce and serve.
Char Sui
Products to use: Duke of Berkshire Belly Bone-in
The classical Cantonese recipe for Char Sui has quite a few ingredients. If you do not fancy going to that extent, you can get very good ready-made Char Sui marinades from Chinese supermarkets.
- Remove any rib bones and slice the meat into half-inch-thick slices.
- Bat out with a rolling pin to tenderise and flatten.
- Use a fork and stab holes in the meat so that the marinade can be absorbed more quickly.
- Mix with the marinade and leave overnight.
- Remove from the marinade and pan-fry until cooked.
- When cooked, soak the meat in sugar syrup for 30 minutes before slicing.
