Seb's very meaty meat and mushroom pie!

It seems to be all doom and gloom with the extended lockdown in NSW since Term 2 school holidays. 

So to mix things up a bit, I thought it would be a good idea for the kids to provide one savoury and one sweet dish each week to give their Mama a break from cooking duties. 

Throwing them a few food magazines to get their creative minds working, Seb decided he wanted to make a meat pie, this child of mine is quite a carnivore and loves spice.

With our fortnightly Your Food Collective food box delivery, it's always a fun surprise to see what delicious seasonal produce is provided, so that was our starting point. We also love the meat provided by these ladies, and I can't go past that delicious bacon.

So with gravy beef, osso bucco, mushrooms, beans in this week's delivery, Seb's pie was on the menu for this family.

 Thanks Jamie for kicking me into gear to post this pie recipe.

Ingredients

Meat filling	Vegetable Filling	Herbs	Liquids	Baking
1kg of gravy steak   500g osso bucco   1 tsp black pepper   Season well with salt	2 onions finely diced 2 garlic cloves chopped finely   Season with salt	2 star anise 1 cinnamon stick 2 bay leaves 2 tbsp tomato paste	A good two shakes of worcestershire sauce 200mL red wine 1 stock cube and 3 cups of water (or 3 cups beef stock)   Juice of ½ lemon	2 sheets of puff pastry thawed   2 sheets of short crust thawed
1 cup of cornflour	2 celery sticks cut finely   500g mushrooms cut in half   2 carrots, rough chopped	1 sprig of rosemary, remove stalk and cut leaves finely	Olive oil	Baking ceramic beads   1 egg lightly beaten to glue the short crust and puff pastry/ and brushing on top

1.       Cut up gravy steak into 2-3cm bite size pieces. Leave osso bucco as is. Season the beef with generous amount of salt and black pepper. Then toss beef pieces and osso bucco in the corn flour.

2.       Heat 2 tablespoon of olive oil in a large saucepan over high heat. Shake off the excess cornflour from the beef and add to the saucepan. Do this in batches, so you don’t overcrowd the pan and the sear the beef all over for 3 mins til the meat gets this lovely golden brown burnish all over. Transfer beef to a plate once this is done.

3.       Use the same pan, add 2 tablespoon of olive oil and add onions and season with salt and add fine chopped rosemary leaves. Once onions have softened, about 4 mins, add garlic and cook for a further minute until fragrant. Transfer to a bowl once this is done.

4.       Using the same pan, add 1 tablespoon of olive oil, add carrots, celery to fry for about 2mins.

5.       Add the onions back in.  Then add the tomato paste, star anise, cinnamon stick, bay leaves, 200mL red wine, Worcestershire sauce, and golden brown beef pieces. Then add the stock if using or stock cube and 3 cups of water and lemon juice. Cover and, turn the heat to low and simmer gently for 2 hours. Don’t forget to stir every 10- 20 mins or so (as you don’t want the mixture sticking to the bottom).

6.       After 2 hours, the mixture will be like a thick gravy consistency, the meat will be tender, the osso bucco will have fallen off the bone. Remove bone, add bone marrow into the meat mixture and break up osso bucco meat. Remove star anise, cinnamon stick and bay leaves as well. Allow mixture to cool.

7.       Preheat oven to 180C

8.       We used a lasagna dish for this family of big eaters. Using two sheets of short crust pastry that have been thawed. You’ll find there will be a bit of overlap in the middle so cut this section out and add to the short sides. Line a sheet of baking paper on top of the pastry, add ceramic baking beads on top and bake for 20 mins. Once this is done, take the baking sheet and ceramic baking beads out and place pastry back in the oven for another 5 mins until the base is a light golden colour. (This will give the base that lovely crisp crunch.)

9.       Fill the pie with cooled meat filling.

10.   Brush edges of the cook short crust pastry with egg before applying the puff pastry (for a delicious flaky golden topping) on top. You will note overlap again, cut the section out and make interesting shapes to apply on top of the lids. Apply eggwash on lids and cut out pieces. Make 4 little incisions with a small knife before placing back into the oven to bake for 30mins.

11.   Devour whilst the pie is hot and fresh topped with tomato sauce with a side of peas and blanched beans. 

Hot tip

Keep left over meat mixture to make mini meat pies later on.

Any left over pie can be reheated in the oven at 180C for 15 mins.