Beer, Beef And Bacon Pie My Way

I thought a nice warm meal might be the plan for this evening seeing as it's cold, rainy and thundering! I'm making a casserole and using it as a pie filling.

 Ingredients:

1kg Diced Beef  (I've used diced porterhouse as we bought a whole one that was shit steak)
4 Rashers of Bacon Diced
2 Lge Onions Diced
2 Lge Cloves of Garlic finely Diced
2 Lge Carrots Diced
3 Medium Potatoes Diced
6 Large Button Mushrooms sliced
2 Coopers Pale Ale 375ml
3 Tbs Powdered Beef Stock
3Tbs Plain flour mixed with a small amount of water into a smooth paste

What to do:

You can either cook this in the slowcooker, or in an oven dish that you can use on the stove top and then the oven. I have used a cast iron casserole dish. Preheat the oven to 150 degrees.  Brown the beef, bacon, onions and garlic. Add the remaining ingredients, but only one of the beers and stir to combine. Bring to a simmer, pop the lid on and into the oven. Cook in the oven for approx 4 hrs, stir every half hour adding the other bottle of beer around a third at a time.

To make your pies....

Let your Casserole cool. In the meantime blind bake your pastry for the bottom of your pie. Line a Pie Dish with baking paper, lay down your pastry and cover with another layer of baking paper. Put some Ceramic pie weights into the pie dish on top of the last layer of baking paper. (If you don't have pie weights you can use rice or any kind of dried beans. I used to use Rice before I bought the Pie Weights and leave it in a container and only used it for blind baking) Bake in the oven at the same temp (150) as your casserole for around 10 mins.

Once your pastry has blind baked let it cool.

Add your Pie filling and top with some grated tasty cheese of your choice and place your pastry top on, sealing the sides with beaten egg. Baste of the top of your pie with beaten egg. With a sharp knife leave a few holes in the top to release the heat. Bake until the pastry is golden! Enjoy...