Family Style Meat Pie Recipe

This is a recipe for a family-style savoury meat pie, Australian style. I’ve made it a couple of times and people seem to like it.

It’s based on a couple of recipes, both from RecipeTinEats. Basically I took her individual meat pie recipe and made it family-sized, but added a few extra ingredients for umami.

The pie isn’t fancy. I make it with basic ingredients — chuck steak and cheap beef stock.

That said, this is still a super high-quality pie compared to what you get at supermarkets or the pie stand. See those chunks of beef and big veggies… this meal is a feast!

Ingredients

Pie crust

• 3 shortcrust pastry sheets
• 3 puff pastry sheets
• 1 egg (for whisking onto lid)

Filling

• 1kg chuck beef (cheap), cut into 1-2cm chunks. Trim fat
• 1 onion, chopped
• 6 garlic cloves, crushed or chopped finely
• 1L beef stock
• 1 tbsp tomato paste
• 1 tsp black pepper
• 1 tsp white pepper
• 1.5 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
• 1 tablespoon fish sauce
• 1 small punnet mushrooms
• 2-3 carrots, chopped finely
• 2-3 celery sticks, sliced thinly
• 1/2 cup flour

Instructions

Essentially, there are three phases to making the pie:

1. Make the filling (quick prep, but 4-12 hours cooking). Aim to finish this at least a few hours before baking.
2. Blind bake the pastry shell (~20 minutes)
3. Bake the pie (~40 minutes)

Filling

To make the filling for this pie, you just prep a beef base and slow cook it for ages. Then you reduce it, then thicken it with flour.

1. Cut beef into 2cm chunks and sear it well, maybe in batches, until well golden. Season it lightly (not too much; most seasoning will come from the beef stock).
2. Add onion, cooking a few minutes until the onion is sautéed. Then add garlic. Don’t burn it.
3. Add beef stock while stirring constantly until it has warmed through.
4. Add tomato paste, pepper, Worcesterchire sauce, fish sauce, mushrooms, celery, and onion.
5. Slow cook anywhere from 6-12 hours. You can also opt for a fast cook of a couple of hours then a slow cook for four hours. But that beef has to be fall-apart tender.
6. Reduce on stove for about 30 minutes, then remove some of the liquid to a bowl, add the flour to make a paste, then add that paste back into the pot. Cook until it has thickened (a couple of minutes).

Now, let your mixture cool, ideally for a couple of hours.

Shell

1. Get a pie tin and line it with two layers of shortcrust pastry.
2. Prick it all over with a fork, then cover it with a sheet of baking paper and something to weigh it down (e.g. rice or beans)
3. Blind bake for ~20 minutes

Assembly

1. Put cooled pie mixture into shell
2. Cover with puff pastry, then brush with beaten egg
3. Bake for 30-40 minutes, until shell is golden.

Cool the pie and you’re done.