Beef and Guinness Pie / Stew Recipe
This is a simple beef stew with an incredible sauce. We often turn it into a pie by covering the cooked stew with a pastry crust and baking a bit. Use a tougher piece of beef, as it is cheaper and the cooking process is going to soften it. A round cut, or shank, works well, but use what you can get. Definitely serve with a mashed potato to soak up the gravy. The Irish recipe "Champ" is nice with this.
Cooking Temperature 170 C / 325 F / Gas Mark 3
Ingredients
Instructions
- Peel the onions, cut them in half, then slice.
- Wash the carrots, cut into large chunks.
- Cut the beef into bite-sized cubes.
- Heat oil in a large saucepan, fry onions just until softened; don't let them brown.
- On a plate, season the flour with salt and pepper, then roll the beef cubes in the flour to coat (this is called "dredging"), then add to the onions and brown the sides of the cubes - this develops the flavour of the meat.
Add the carrots, then the Guinness and the stock and bring to a simmer. Add the bay leaf, and then cook further by one of the following methods:
- Turn all into a large enough casserole dish and cook in a heated oven (170 C / 325 F / Gas Mark 3) until everything is tender -- about two hours;
- Or, you can let it simmer covered on top the stove in the saucepan for about the same amount of time;
- Or, simply pressure cook on high for 35 minutes.
- To serve as a pie: when the stew is cooked, put in an oven proof dish (if you didn't bake it already in the oven), cover with either a rolled-out sheet of puff pastry, or several sheets of phyllo pastry, and return to oven for about 25 minutes or until pastry is cooked and golden.
Notes
If you have a casserole that is safe for both stove top and oven, then use that instead of a separate saucepan and casserole dish.
You'll want about half a can of Guinness.
Instead of fresh carrots, you can use 1 can of carrots -- add towards end of cooking.
Tried this recipe?Let us know how it was!