St-Patrick’s day is all about honoring Irish traditions: dressing up in green, drinking tons of whiskey, hanging out (and sometimes making out with) leprechauns, consuming rather large quantities of Irish beer (sometimes dyed green) and feasting on the traditional corned beef and cabbage stew. Of all these funky customs, the latter sounds to us like the least exciting – so we thought we’d suggest our readers two delicious options to spice that dish up and make Patty’s night a full-on pie night. Enjoy!
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Instead of heading straight from the office to the bar, why don’t you plan to meet-up with a few friends for a pre-boozefest dinner overlooking Central Park at Le Caprice New York in the iconic Pierre Hotel (they have awesome whiskey cocktails there too, so don’t you worry) and order the braised beef in Guinness. Feeling homey and invited a few friend over to partay? No problem. The chef even gave us his recipe:
Braised Beef in Guinness
Ingredients
3 lbs. trimmed beef flank, cut into 1 inch cubes
1/2 bottle good red wine (
1.5 pints Guinness
5 cloves of garlic, peeled and crushed
1 oz thyme, leaves removed and chopped
1 oz rosemary, leaves removed and chopped
1 bayleaf
Vegetable/canola oil for frying
100 g butter
4 onions, peeled and finely chopped
3 oz plain flour
2 oz tomato puree
5 qts dark meat stock
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
Instructions
Put the pieces of beef into a stainless steel bowl or similar with the red wine, Guinness, garlic, thyme, rosemary and bayleaf. Cover and marinade for two days.
Drain the meat in a colander, reserving the marinade, and dry the pieces on some kitchen paper. Heat the vegetable oil in a heavy frying pan, lightly flour the meat with 1 tbls of the flour, season with salt and pepper and fry the meat on a high heat a few pieces at a time until nicely browned.
Heat the butter in a large heavy-bottomed saucepan and gently fry the onions for a few minutes until soft. Add the flour and tomato puree and stir over a low heat for a minute. Slowly add the marinade stirring constantly to avoid lumps forming. Bring to the boil and simmer until it has reduced by half. Add the meat stock and the pieces of beef, bring back to the boil, cover with a lid and simmer gently for about 2-2½ hours until the meat is tender. It’s difficult to put an exact time on braised meats, sometimes an extra half an hour may be required depending on the meat itself. The best way to check is by actually tasting the meat.
Once the meat is cooked the sauce should have thickened sufficiently, if not dilute a little cornstarch in some water and stir into the sauce and simmer for a few minutes.
When the sauce is the desired thickness leave to cool for 20 minutes. Spoon the meat mixture into a pie dish up to just below the level of the rim and then place the short pastry over the top and cut around. Crimp the edges, make a small whole in the top, brush with beaten egg and bake in the oven for 20 minutes on 400F.
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Wanna kick things up a notch? Try your hand at Jamie Oliver‘s steak, Guinness and cheese pie with a puff pastry lid. I’m reposting this one from My Last Bite (thanks!) – you’ll notice some of Jo’s precious insight on how to cook this heavenly meal highlighted in green (duh!). By the way, you should follow one of our favorite foodie ladies on Twitter here @mylastbite
Guinness Steak Pie
Ingredients
Olive oil
3 medium red onions, peeled and chopped
3 cloves of garlic peeled and chopped
1 oz butter plus extra for greasing
2 carrots peeled and chopped
2 sticks of celery trimmed and chopped
4 field mushrooms peeled and sliced
2 1/2 pound brisket or stewing beef cut in to 1 inch cubes
a few sprigs of rosemary, leaves picked and chopped
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
2 11.2 oz. size bottles of Guinness Draught
2 heaped tablespoons of flour
7 oz freshly grated cheddar cheese 2 sheets of ready made good quality all butter puff pastry
1 large organic free range egg, beaten
1 chopped jalapeno
Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.
In a large ovenproof pan, heat a glug of olive oil on a low heat. Add the onions and fry them gently for about ten minutes – try not to color them too much.
Turn up the heat add the garlic, butter, carrots, celery, jalapenos and scatter in the mushrooms. Mix everything together before stirring in the beef, rosemary, a pinch of slat and a level teaspoon of pepper.
Fry fast for 3 or 4 minutes, then pour in one bottle of Guinness, stir in the flour and add just enough water to cover. Bring to a simmer, cover the pan with a lid and place in the preheated oven for about one (1) and 1/2 hours.
Remove the pan from the oven and give the stew a stir. Put it back in to the oven and continue to cook it for another hour or until the meat is very tender and the stew is rich dark and thick. (I added another half bottle of Guinness at this point).
Jamie notes: “A perfect pie filling needs to be robust, so if it’s still quite liquidy, place the pan on the hob (stove top) and reduce until the sauce thickens.â€
Remove it from the heat and stir in half of the cheese, then season carefully and leave it to cool slightly.
Cut about a third of the pastry from the block. Dust a clean work surface with flour and roll both pieces of pastry out evenly with a floured rolling pin to the thickness of a pound coin.
Butter an appropriately sized pie dish then line with the larger sheet, leaving the edges dangling over the sides.
Tip (pour or spoon) the stew into your pastry lined dish and even it out before sprinkling the remaining cheese over it.
Brush the edges of the pastry with a little beaten egg.
Cut the other rolled sheet of pastry to fit the top of the pie dish and criss-cross lightly with a sharp knife. Place it over the top of the pie and fold the overhanging pastry on to the pastry lid to make it look nice and rustic.
Brush the top with beaten egg then bake the pie directly on the bottom of the oven for 45 minutes until the pastry is cooked puffed and golden.
Serves 4 to 6
