Sluttishly Savoury: Beef and Chestnut Pie

Elizabeth is poorly today so instead of her sharing a fantastic chicken recipe, she's off to bed with Lemsip and a DVD boxed set and I get to share my beef and chestnut pie recipe with you. It's not strictly a pie and pie pedants purists will no doubt tell me off for calling it one. It's really a stew with a puff pastry hat.

If all hats were made of pastry the world would be a much better place.

Chestnuts were a bit of a whim, as I remembered that I had a vacuum pack in the cupboard that I meant to use at Christmas. Usually I'd have put them with white meat, but they worked perfectly, soaking up red wine like a nutty, boozy sponge. This is a pie that punches you in the face. Frankly I wouldn't want anything else from my food in January.

You'll need:

• 500g stewing steak
• 300g Portobello mushrooms, chopped (you probably don't need this many mushrooms, but you try telling me to curb my mushroom use)
• 3 shallots, finely chopped
• two cloves of garlic
• 1/2 bottle of red wine
• cup of beef stock (I mean an actual cup, I used one that had an Isle of Wight map on it)
• 1 vacuum pack of chestnuts (you can buy these in most supermarkets, loitering by the packs of stuffing)
• 2 bay leaves
• 1 packet of puff pastry

Make it!

• Brown the meat in a pan with some oil and seasoning, then add the shallots and mushrooms and garlic. 
• Once that's all smelling brilliant, throw over the wine.
• Pop the vacuum pack into hot water for a few minutes (save the water, it's what you'll use to make the stock). Once they've softened, add them to the pan.
• Mix everything up a bit and turn it town to a low heat. Add the beef stock and bay leaves and leave it alone for about an hour and a half, maybe stirring and trying as you go along. Maybe another 45 minutes if your steak is still a little tough.
• Put your mixture in a pie dish (leave a good half inch, otherwise you'll get gravy all over your oven)  and roll out your puff pastry to size. Then pop in a preheated oven for about 30-40 minutes until you've not nice golden brown pastry tops. 
• The best thing about cooking your mixture this was is that you don't need to use it all in one pie - I had some topped with mash on Sunday. Use as much as you need and freeze the rest, or make mini pies for everyone.
• Or, you could just dish it all up in a bowl and polish off the rest of the red wine.

Flickr image from Gimme Food :-)'s photostream.