Winter Comfort Food
Posted by Kathryn @ 11:33 AM
As some of you may know, Pittsburgh gets rather cold in the winter. It definitely feels like soup or stew weather most of the time, so when I was watching Jamie Oliver's most recent series and he did a Guinness Steak and Cheese pie, my head almost spun. It combined three of the great food loves of my life- pie, cheese, and Guinness. I simply had to make the recipe.
Of course then I struggled to find an actual copy of the recipe. Usually www.foodnetwork.com has the recipes, but apparently Jamie has not officially released this particular dish, so I found a backup source.
The recipe is lacking in some specifics. I used about a pound of mushrooms and a11/2 pounds of brisket in my stew. I also threw in extra flour because several reviews remarked that it gets a bit runny. Next time though I would just not add any additional stock or water on top of the beer. Since there are just two of us at home I also decided to make 1 smaller pie and freeze the extra filling for future pies. For a 1/3 of the stew you need 1 sheet of pepperidge farm puff pastry. I know I know, Dufour is far superior, but not as readily available, so this attempt was with the Pepperidge farm. It was divine. Everyone should try it. I just can't say enough for this recipe.
Tags: Guinness,
Filed Under: Recipe, Recommendations,
1 Comments
That sounds fantastic. I will definitely add this my queue in the upcoming
weeks. Though, I might make a few suggestions in the recipe. Here's some
quick thoughts on it, and you can let me know what you think:
Braise the meat (barely a simmer) in the guinness separately for a couple
hours before making the pie filling. I'd keep it in medium-sized chunks and
then pull it apart once it goes into the pie.
Carmelize the aromatics in the butter. Once they are finished, add the flour
and continue to saute, until you make a brown roux. Add the beef-guinness
mixture to that and bring it up to heat, while mixing. Then add the pulled
beef.
You could try different egg-washes on the puff pastry: egg+water = light;
egg+milk=medium; egg+cream=dark.
And, skip the peas all together
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