Steak | Life of Pie

Nikki here!

So I decided to make two pies for Savory Week: Steak/Beef Stew Pie and Chile Relleno Pie.

Steak Pie/Beef Stew Pie:

This recipe was originally only steak and onion with a puff pastry top, but I wanted to expand upon it with more vegetables (carrots, turnips, garlic) and an actual pie crust. It also originally called for mushroom gravy, which I replaced with actual mushrooms and beef broth, as well as a few spices such as rosemary and a bay leaf or two. Since the broth made the filling a bit watery, I knew I would need to prebake the pie crust; it was kinda fun to use the bean method (but not really…its not that exciting…); at any rate, I suppose this pie would either require a) more stewing time pre-bake; or b) time in the refrigerator to congeal and be served cold.

I think my experiment went fairly well; it was very tasty and savoury, and the lard crust was well suited to its beefy contents. The meat was a bit tough, so I’m not sure whether it needed to stew more or less (any meat experts out there?)

I topped it off with a goofy attempt at the Harry Potter Deathly Hallows symbol, which I then watched over the weekend and realized that the circle actually goes inside the triangle (whatevs). It all went to the same place anyway 😉

Pie number two: Chile Relleno

I found this recipe online and stuck with it the whole time. It was actually really freakin good; I believed it would be awesome, but a few of my friends were a bit skeptical (also, for all those Williams College people don’t know what Chile Relleno is, it’s a mexican dish made from stuffed, roasted Poblano Peppers, which are not spicy;cheese, and an egg batter. The pie also included precooked chicken and was topped by salsa. The lard crust was fine, and held together fairly well (probably my best crust yet as far as handling and timing goes).

Since it got raving reviews I would absolutely make this pie again, but with a few more peppers, as it is of my opinion that the more the merrier in regards to roasted peppers.

Outside of class, I was inspired to try this Leek and Gruyere cheese pie, which, with a delicious all butter crust, was pretty amazing in all its simplicity. How unfortunate that gruyere is so expensive!

It was very difficult to choose a single recipe to try this week. I am quite unfamiliar with savory pies, but so many recipes were making me salivate. I narrowed it down to a mushroom pie (I am a sucker for mushrooms) and a steak and Stilton pie (which looked so fun to make). I made my decision by literally flipping a coin.

I made several changes to the original recipe. First of all, instead of using a store-bought, frozen puff pastry, I made my own. I used Susan Purdy’s recipe for Quick Puff Pastry. There was also the option of making a Classic Puff Pastry, but that would’ve taken me fifteen years to finish. So Quick Puff Pastry it is. The ingredients were very similar to those in the basic flaky pastry which we’ve been making. The difference is in the procedure.

First of all, you roll the pastry out, then slather it with a nice layer of butter, as seen here:

Then you use things like the “letter fold” and the “book fold” to layer the dough. The latter is featured in the picture below.

Then you fold, then roll, then fold, then roll, then fold, then chill, then roll, then fold, etc. For a long time. And then your puff pastry is ready! Here it is, awaiting to be chilled overnight in the fridge:

With the puff pastry done, it was time to begin on the pie filling. This is an English style pie, so it doesn’t have a bottom crust. The original recipe was supposed to make four individual pies, but I adapted it to make one 9-inch pie. The recipe said to brown the meat first, then work on the vegetables. The most exciting part of this recipe was adding a bottle stout beer to the vegetables and leaving them to simmer for 1.5 hours.

Once that was done, the steak and mustard powder and cheese were combined with the rest of the filling. The original recipe calls for English Stilton cheese, which was unavailable at Stop and Shop, so a more generic blue cheese was used instead. I also cut down on the amount of blue cheese; the recipe called for 6oz, but I used 3-4oz instead. I know that here are some diehard blue cheese lovers out there, but I like mine in moderation. A taste test suggests that the pie should be good. It needed a little seasoning with salt and pepper, but I think I got it right. Here’s a picture of the filling, waiting patiently for its top crust.

The puff pastry was surprisingly easy to roll out/work with. I made a very simple design on it. Man, I’m going to have to up my game for next week.

Here’s the final product. There was some bubbling-over happening, so not the prettiest thing, but should still taste good! I guess we’ll see 🙂

Life of Pie | THEA 10

Documenting a January of pie-making at Williams College

Tag Archives: Steak

Savory Stuff

Steak and Stilton Pie