The pie's the Limit....

Dear Tom

Well done, I had a feeling that a meat dish might get some attention.

So this weekend, instead of posting a completely new recipe (I had planned bacon and cheese scones) I thought you could use your intuition a bit more and expand on the stew theme...

One of the things I tend to do when cooking is to cook too much, often on purpose, because left overs are the best bit. Also it is a more economical way of cooking, why make only one or two portions of stew, if the oven is on anyway you might as well make more. OK, so nobody is going to want to eat stew four days in a row, but say you had four portions, you could use one, freeze one and then with the other make a new dish, again one to eat and one to keep in the fridge or freeze.

Last week you made a beef stew, how about a lamb one? You could add rosemary or a spoon of red current sauce?

When you have finished cooking it then you need to divide your portions., and decide what to make.

When making a beef stew I tend to make a pie, when using lamb I make a hot pot, but either is interchangeable.

It just requires a little thickening of the gravy which can easily be done with bisto or even cornflour.

Pie

To make a pie you can use the pastry techniques that you learnt back in December (Recipe and method is under mince pies I believe) but in brief - 8oz flour, combined with 4oz butter and a splash of water to form dough. Chill it for 20 mins. then roll out and use.
You don't need to make a bottom to your pie, just pop your stew into required pie dish and top with pastry, making sure that the pastry is slightly wider than the dish and comes up the edges a little. This will stop the gravy bubbling over it and sinking it!! Make to small slits in the middle of your pastry, to let out the steam, egg wash for a golden glaze and then pop into your oven at gas5/200'c until bubbling and brown.

Hot Pot

To make a hot pot is even easier, if you made this with two portions of stew mix you could freeze one.

Knowing you have a limited amount of cookware (Unlike me who has enough to start a lending library or possibly a museum!) I suggest you cook the stew, then pour it into a different pan to keep it. You will need your lovely cast iron pot for this one. For anyone with more cook ware a Pyrex dish or similar sized oven proof dish will be fine.
Put the required amount of stew into the casserole dish. Next take two medium potatoes, peel and slice really thinly so that each slice is only 1mm or so, if they are thick they will just take longer to cook which is no big deal, and can be yummy you will just need to cook for slightly longer and cover the pot for the first half of the cooking time to prevent burning.
So, take potato slices and arrange them over the top of your stew, covering it and starting a second layer if needed, season and then dot the top with butter (to help browning) and cook for about 30-40 minutes at about gas5/200'c until brown and bubbling, or until you are too hungry to wait I guess. If the potatoes are browning to quickly, put the pot lid on or cover with some aluminium foil.
Serve with green vegetables.
You could do slices of celeriac with your slices of potatoes too.

Right, so does that all make sense?

Failing all of the above, make another stew and top with ready to roll puff pastry :)

 Happy to write out recipes again, but I'm sure you'll be fine.

Yours with faith

Ruth

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