Have you been watching Masterchef Australia? Cause I have! I’ve been watching religiously. hehe And loving it! Friday’s Masterclass is the day I will never miss and even if I do, I will catch up on it online. It is during this time when I get inspired and motivated to try making completely new things. I love the fact that they post their recipes on the masterchef australia website too! Makes it so much easier when trying new dishes!
The Friday that we saw Gary made his beef onion & guinness pie, the mr immediately asked me to make it for dinner the next day! I was very hesistant to make pastry from scratch cos the first time I made a pie/tart base, it failed miserably! So I had a back-up plan, if the pie case failed, I would mash potatoes and turn it into a cottage pie instead! So with a back-up plan in mind, I went all out! So much so I invited friends who were in Melbourne for a visit over for dinner! Haha. I wasn’t too sure what got into my head.
Thank goodness the pie was a big hit! The pastry was buttery and flaky. We could just have it on it’s own (and we did for the left over pastry haha)! I couldn’t really believe how easy it was to make it and I had alot of fun rolling it out and cutting it to fit the baking tin as well! hehe And the best way to have the pie? With a whole heap of tomato sauce of course! YUMMY!
This is definitely a pastry I can see myself making very very often in the future for either sweet or savoury dishes!
And the beef. Where can I begin? It melts in your mouth. Pity I couldn’t cook it for slightly longer cause I already made my guests wait for 1 hour (lucky thing I had Running Man on so they were entertained! hehe) and so I just really needed to get it in the pastry cases, baked and served!
Remember my back-up plan? I had to use it anyway because I had so much beef left, it was a great way to serve them – with creamy parmesan mash! To complete the meal, I made a bowl of salad and viola! (: Was a perfect night with good company!
Beef Onion and Guinness Pies (Adapted from Masterchef Australia)
Filling
3 kg chuck steak, cut into 5cm pieces
150ml olive oil
6 onions, sliced
8 cloves of garlic, peeled and smashed
5 dried bay leaves
4 tbs plain flour
salt and freshly ground black pepper, for season
2 carrots, cut into large chunks
600ml Guinness
1.5 litres beef stock
1 egg, beaten
Tomato sauce, to serve
Maggie Beer’s Sour Cream Pastry
200g chilled unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
250g plain flour, extra for dusting
pinch of salt
1/2 cup sour cream
Steps :
1) Season the beef generously with salt and black pepper. Heat a non-stick frying pan with 100ml of olive oil on high heat, and cook the beef in a few batches until all sides are well browned. Add the carrot and cook for 5-6 minutes until golden. Set aside.
2) In a large pot, add the rest of the 50ml of olive oil and heat over low heat. Add the onions and garlic and cook until the onions are soft and translucent, stirring continuously. This will take around 40 minutes. Increase the heat to medium-high, add the bay leaves and cook until a slightly darker brown, without burning it. Add the flour and stir till there is no visible flour left.
3) Add the beef and carrots into the pot and pour 1/2 of the Guinness into the pan to de-glaze, scraping all the brown bits on the bottom. Pour that and the remaining Guinness into the pot. Add the beef stock and make sure there is enough liquid to cover all the beef. Bring it to a boil.
4) Partially cover the pot with the lid and lower the heat to low. Allow that to simmer fir at least 2 1/2 hours or until tender. Set aside and allow it to cool until the pastry is ready. This could also be made in advance and kept in a fridge for up to 3 days.
5) To make the pastry : In an electric mixer, blend the butter and flour and a pinch of salt until the mixture resembles large bread crumbs. Slowly add the sour cream and mix until it comes together to form a dough. Shape it into a disc and wrap it in plastic wrap and chill it in the fridge for 20 minutes.
6) Preheat oven to 190 degrees celcius. Grease 12 holes in a cupcake baking tin with butter (or 6 in a muffin tin). Roll out the pastry to 3-5mm, using a little extra flour for dusting. Cut out 12 rounds about 4 cm bigger than the cupcake holes and another 12 rounds that are about 2 cm larger for the lids.
7) Place a pie base in each hole, then press in lightly with your fingers. Make sure there is about 1 cm left above the mould. Fill each hole with some beef mixture and top each with a pastry lid and crimp the edges to seal in the filling. Brush each pastry top with the beaten egg, and cut a small hole in the center of each pie for steam to escape.
8) Bake the pies for 20-25 minutes, or until the pastry is golden brown. Remove from the oven and allow to stand for 5 minutes. Turn out and serve with tomato sauce.
ENJOY! (:
PS : I made much more than the 12 pies needed, so like I mentioned before, I topped the leftover beef filling with a creamy parmesan mash. You could easily make another batch of pastry and make more pies! (: Or just cut the recipe into half!
Food Made With Love 
Guess we both are in same boat when it comes to following MasterChef. Your pie looks yum and I bet they will give good challenge to Gary ;).
aww thanks so much! that’s a really huge compliment! hehe wouldn’t think it would be as good but it sure was delicious! (:
These pies look delicious!! Nice work! Also loving this nod towards the Irish, hehe 😉
hehe (: thanks dearie! Pies are our new fav! hehe x
Love it, darls! I too was inspired a lot by MasterChef hehe and as you know just posted about a pie recipe myself 😉 Haven’t made pastry from scratch before but since you’ve raved about this particular recipe, I think I’ll have to give it a go next time I make a pie! Great work 🙂
hehe yes babe! u HAVE TO try the Maggie Beer sour cream pastry! I am very sure you will love it! hehe and so easy too! hehe (: Thanks dearie! x hope you’ll enjoy it! hehe
Mamma Mia! That looks wonderful 😀
hehe thanks rachel!! (: x
They look amazing! Definitely got to try that sour cream pastry by Maggie beer 😉 sadly I wasn’t into MC as much this year as all other years. I don’t know why.. But anyways, im actually more of a BBQ sauce with my meat pies! Haha have you tried it? 🙂
hehe yes! the sour cream pastry is amazing! So gonna use them for everything haha (: I’ve actually not tried bbq sauce! will try it next time! hehe x
This looks so good. I want to try but it looks very time consuming =S
it does take a long time on the stove/in the oven if u have the casserole dish! But you kinda can just leave it and go do other things and just make the pastry just an hour before you wanna serve! (: Time consuming yes, but definitely worth the time spent!
I’ve decided to try it this weekend haha. Your pictures are too yummy
yay! (: let me know what you think!
I’m planning to make it into one big pie using approx 9 inch pie dish. So… how much pastry did you end up with from your recipe & do you think its enough for the pie dish? Thanks haha
should be enough cause I could make 12 cupcake size ones and still had more left! (: maybe just double the recipe just in case! More recipe is better than not enough! hehe plus you can bake the leftover pastry and just have it. it’s that good!
Well… cooking the beef stew was an all day affair lol constant interruptions meant that it was only done by 8pm (I started at 8am!!) The pie came out of the oven at 10.30 and it was yummy lol. Think the stew has to be drier for a large pie like what I made. Just FYI, for the 9″ pie dish, I needed about 1.25x of your pastry portion, and probably only about 1.2 kg meat is needed for one pie (I used 2.5kg of beef, and still have about half left, another pie coming up tomorrow lol)
hehe well you can always mash some potatoes and top the leftover beef, and tadah! Another meal! hehe Thanks for the update! hope you enjoyed it even though it took a long time! Worth the wait and hard work! (:
WAHHH too good! I was wondering when you were going to write a post about these pies 🙂 I have decided…one day lol not sure when…when Mr Bao is extra nice and have earned it I will make these for him 😛
YAY!! you will love making and using the sour cream pastry babe! (: Let me know when you do! hehe xx
OMG that shot of the tomato sauced pie literally made me drool haha! SO good!!!
hehe yes it was good! Love a good pie! hehe so I can deduce you have your piece with tomato sauce too?? hehe (: