Serves 6

Rating 4/5

Difficulty 2/5

This is a relatively easy recipe, that’s is wonderful on a cold winter’s night. Baking the pie lids separately makes cooking these pies much quicker and easer.

Ingredients

• 1kg rump steak, cut into chunky cubes
• 375ml good quality stout (such as Coopers Best Extra Stout or Grand Ridge Hatlifter)
• 3-4 (about 400g) Desiree potatoes, cut into 1cm cubes
• 2 carrots, chopped
• 2 onions, chopped
• 375ml beef stock
• 2 garlic cloves
• 1 bay leaf
• ¼ cup flour
• 2 tbs olive oil
• 2 tbs tomato paste
• 2 tbs Worcestershire sauce
• 1 egg beaten
• Pinch black pepper
• Sesame seeds
• 2 sheets puff pastry (or enough to cover ramekins)

Method

1. Preheat oven to 200° C.

2. Lightly coat beef in flour. Set aside remaining flour.

3. Heat the oil in a large non-stick frypan.

4. Brown beef cubes for a few minutes, in batches, and place into large saucepan.

5. Brown onion in frypan.

6. Add onion, garlic, carrots, tomato paste, flour, sauce, stout, potato, stock, pepper, and bay leaf to beef in saucepan. Bring to boil, whilst stirring regularly.

7. Reduce to simmer, and cook until meat is tender and sauce thickens, about 1½ -2 hours. Stir regularly.

8. Meanwhile, use the top of ramekins as a size guide on pastry sheets. Cut circles slightly larger than ramekins out of puff pastry.

9. Place pastry rounds on baking trays covered with greaseproof paper. Brush the pastry with beaten egg, and sprinkle with sesame seeds. Bake for about 10 minutes, until puffed and golden brown.

10. Remove bay leaf from mixture.

11. Evenly spoon filling into ramekins, and top with pastry rounds. Serve with your favourite winter vegetables and a glass (or two) of stout.

[adrotate group=”1″]