A summer beef and vegetable pie has to be lighter, the meat lean and the vegetables just cooked, but it needs a sauce to bind the filling, but it has to be light. You simmer the beef with soffritto in beer, so there are two layers of veggies in this. As herb I used fresh bay leaves.
Ingredients
900g beef goulash
Soffritto (One large onions, one large carrot, one large celery stick, two clove of garlic, one chille and four bay leaves (fresh if possible).
340ml Bottle of beer. In summer I use lager, in winter a stout will be ideal.
One large onion
One large carrot
One large celery stick
Two medium potatoes
250g Mushrooms
Two rolls of store puff pastry. (I will make something with
a butter puff soon, but time was tight and the Spar brand puff worked great.)
Egg wash.
Method
Heat oil in a large pot – olive or canola or sunflower.
Season the meat with salt, pepper and smoked paprika (I use sweet La Dahlia) and dust with flour.
Brown the meat in batches over medium high heat and set aside.
While doing this chop the veggies for the soffritto.
Deglaze the pot with a splash of beer or red wine.
Add oil if needed and sweat the soffritto until done.
Add the browned beef and bottle of beer to the pot, cover and simmer for 60 – 90minutes until beef is nearly tender.
Peel and chop and the rest of the veggies in bite-sized chunks and add to the pot in order of cooking time –carrots, potatoes, celery and then mushrooms 15 minutes before done.
Cool the mixture. I half fill the kitchen sink with cold water and put the open pot in this, with severe warnings to my family not to get close.
Preheat the oven to 200°C.
Grease a pie dish and add filling to about a centimetre from the top.
Add the pastry, cut off the excess for topping and crimp the edges with a fork or fingers. Use a pie bird or cut some slits for the steam to escape. Brush with egg wash, add the bits for decoration and egg wash those as well.
Bake for 30 – 40 minutes until crust is nicely browned.
Let cool a few minutes before serving with white rice. There are plenty of vegetable in the filling.