Beef and Guiness Pie from Ireland

This is a great meal on a cold rainy day.  An Irish Pub classic!  The gravy is quite rich and I suggest you put the salt in little by little according to taste.  I made this the day before my Sunday lunch party and the meat absorbed the flavours and was so tender it simply fell apart in my mouth.  Only put the pastry on when it is ready to go into the oven.

Beef and Guiness Pie

3 onions sliced

2 tablespoons cooking oil

6 garlic cloves finely chopped

1 red chili finely chopped

1.5kg beef chuck cut into bite-sized cubes

1 tablespoon salt

1 tablespoon black pepper

2 tablespoons dried thyme

2 tablespoons Worcester sauce (soy sauce works as well)

2 cups water

1 beef stock cube

1 x 440ml can Guiness

2/3 cup flour

Ready-rolled puff pastry

1 egg

Put cooking oil in pot with onions, garlic and chili.  Fry until soft.  Add in cubes of beef and brown a little to seal in the goodness.  Sprinkle the flour on top of the meat and stir it in.  Add in seasonings, Worcester sauce, water, stock cube and Guiness.  Bring to the boil then reduce heat and simmer for 2 hours.  Preheat oven to 200 degrees Celsius.  Spoon beef and Guiness mixture into a deep pie dish or into individual ramekins.  Cover with the puff pastry, brush with a beaten egg and bake in the oven for 25 minutes until golden brown.

Cindy Vine is the author of Not Telling, Defective and Hush Baby.  She currently lives and works in Kyiv, Ukraine.  Her books are available on Amazon in both print and Kindle format.