Essential Beef and Gravy Pie Recipe

I have a whole collection of what I call “Blank Canvas Recipes”.

These are recipes in their most basic form that can be changed up to create any number of variations.

This is one such recipe. We’ve curried it, we’ve pepper steak and mushroomed it, we’ve hidden extra veggies, herbed, spiced and, on the odd occasion, made a real mess of it. What can I say? It happens. When you like to get experimental in the kitchen (we’re cooking here, stay with me) there's no guarantees you'll get it right first time, every time. But at least with a good base recipe, I'm always off to a good start.

Why puff pastry on the bottom? That's just how I like it. If you prefer to use shortcrust, the method is still the same.

Beef mince pie

---Ingredients--- 

1 Tbls Oil

2 medium Carrots

2 celery sticks

1 brown Onion

500g regular beef mince (ground beef)

3 Tbls plain flour

1 tsp beef stock powder

¼ cup water

1 Tbls BBQ Sauce

1 teaspoon Worcestershire Sauce

2-3 sheets puff pastry

Baking beads or rice

---Method---

•Defrost pastry sheets and preheat oven to 180°C

•Line a pie dish or small baking dish with baking paper. When pastry is defrosted and pliable, cut and press sheets into the base leaving enough for the pie lid later. Cover with another sheet of baking paper and fill base with baking beads or rice. Bake for 20 minutes.

•Remove beads/rice from base and bake for a further 10 minutes. *Base will puff up a little, just carefully press it down after removing it from the oven.

•Preheat oil in a medium to large saucepan. Saute carrots, celery and onion for 1 minute. Add beef and cook until almost browned. Stir in flour and cook for a further 2 minutes.

• Stir through stock powder, water and sauces and simmer for 15-20 minutes stirring at regular intervals.

•Scoop pie filling into pastry base and cover with remaining pastry sheet. Cut 2 small slits into the top of the pastry lid and bake pie for 30 minutes or until top is puffed, crisp and lightly browned.