Pie Number 21 - Beef and Onion Pie

 The Year of Pie

Pie Number 21 - Beef and Onion Pie

    I love the little cookbook that this recipe is in. It is the Tried And True Grit Recipes - 95 Years of Homestyle Recipes. The recipe originally appeared in The Grit Cookbook, on May 4, 1958. The great thing about this pie, is that you can use beef (as in the title), ground turkey, ground chicken, ground pork or even ground bison, like I did. The other modification I made was that I added a top crust. The recipe in the book does not call for a top crust, so a top crust is optional. It definitely was more appetizing to look at, with a top crust. 

    I was really happy with how this pie turned out. My crust was good; the texture of the filling was good and "sturdy" and I liked the taste. This was pretty quick and easy to make. You could get up to eight servings from this. You don't need large slices, especially if you are serving the pie with a side salad or vegetable(s) on the side. Try this. I think you'll like it. 

Ingredients:

pastry for a 9-inch pie shell (double crust optional) (I made pastry for a double-crust pie)

1 lb ground beef (or your choice of ground meat; I used ground bison)

2 tbsps butter or margarine

1 large or 2 medium onions, thinly sliced

1 1/2 tsps salt

1/4 tsp pepper

2 tbsps flour

1 cup sour cream or butter milk (I used sour cream, but I think plain, non-fat Greek yogurt would add an interesting flavor)

1 tsp Worcestershire sauce (I didn't realize I was out; I used low sodium soy and it was just fine)

2 eggs, slightly beaten

pimiento strips (optional)

parsley flakes (optional)

Directions:

Cook onion in butter until translucent. Add in ground meat  and cook until meat is completely cooked (browned). Pour off any grease. Stir in salt, pepper and flour. Mix sour cream, Worcestershire sauce and eggs into the meat and onion mixture. Pour into pastry lined pie pan. Cover with top crust if desired. Bake at 375 degrees for 30 to 40 minutes. A knife inserted at the edge of filling should come out clean. Serve with a sprinkle of parsley flakes and/or pimiento strips and a vegetable or garden salad. 

Bison and Onion PIe

Bison and Onion Pie with Peas

Bison and Onion Pie with Peas

Beef In Guinness

 Beef In Guinness

    I know, I know. It's been awhile since I've written.  Life has been a lot lately and I just haven't been cooking much from my cookbooks.  I also had considered discontinuing my blog, but I have decided to keep it going and just cook and write.  Even if it is just for me.  

    This recipe is from a recipe in "Irish Country Cooking - Traditional and modern recipes from the Emerald Isle", published in 1995.  First off, this was pretty much my single most expensive recipe to make. The cost of the skirt steak I bought almost deterred me, but I'd had my mind set on making this, as it was the winner of a poll I ran on what I should make next.  Some of the directions did not make any sense and that was partly due to directions like "Bring to the boil....", but I made it work.  

    The bad grammar and nonsensical, incomplete instructions (I'm not perfect myself, but this was bad) were distracting, but like I said, I made it work.  That is kind of the cool thing about cooking.  The recipe can be modified as necessary and sometimes it still turns out good. This would be perfect with chunked or mashed potatoes (Hello! It's in an Irish cookbook), which I somehow had neglected to buy, so I served with rice and a slice of toasted sourdough bread.   I thought the dish turned out pretty good and I would think about making it again, when beef is less expensive.  

Ingredients:

2-3lbs Beef Skirt Steak

Seasoned Flour (It doesn't say what to season it with, so I used a little pepper and some crushed Italian seasoning)

Oil or "dripping" (I guess that's supposed to be "drippings"; I used a bit of oil in my pan)

2 Onions, sliced (I used sweet onions)

3 Carrots, sliced (I used 2 carrots, because I simply did not buy the correct amount)

4 Garlic, 4 whole cloves (I left them whole, but I don't see why you couldn't slice the garlic)

1 Large bunch of herbs (Unspecified; I used the crushed Italian seasoning)

Salt to taste (I didn't add salt)

Pepper to taste 

2 1/2 Cups Beef Stock

2 Bottles of Guinness beer (I used extra stout)

1 Oyster per person, optional (I don't eat oysters and I don't understand why this is an optional ingredient; like why put an oyster on top of each serving?)

Directions:

Season your flour in a small bowl. Cut up your skirt steak into small pieces, about 2 to 3 inches and dip into your seasoned flour. Fry in hot oil. The recipe does not specify how long to cook it.  I cooked for several minutes to ensure it was fairly well browned. No need to thoroughly cook, since there is another 2 hours of cooking time. I removed the browned meat to a platter and cooked the onions and garlic in the oil. The recipe says to add the meat, onions and "other vegetables" (there's only one other vegetable {the carrots}) to a casserole dish, followed by the herbs and seasoning (the salt and pepper, I guess). I used a cast iron dutch oven for the whole recipe, because the recipe itself calls for bringing the ingredients to a boil, turning to low and cooking for 1 1/2 hours, before adding the Guinness beer. And to me, that means keeping it on the stove and a casserole dish is for putting in an oven.  So, getting back to it, after adding the beer, bring it back to a boil and then turn to low and simmer for another 30 minutes.  

The recipe instructions in the cookbook call for removing the meat with a slotted spoon and serving,  then reducing the liquid to half for the sauce. Then, it says to pour the sauce over the beef again, season to taste and then add the oysters if you are using oysters and serve with hot, crusty bread.  What I did, was remove the meat, carrots and onions and make a light gravy with the liquid, before re-combining everything in a large casserole dish for serving. This helped make sure all of the ingredients were hot.

If you try this, feel free to comment. 

Guinness Extra Stout

Browning the skirt steak

Skirt steak, onion, carrots, garlic and seasoning ready for the beef stock

My finished product! Beef in Guinness

    

5-Hour Stew

 5-Hour Stew

    Alright, alright, alright! This is another recipe from the 75th Anniversary Hy-Vee cookbook. I liked that this recipe was super easy. The first thing I did was prep the vegetables, by cleaning and peeling the carrots and potatoes; cleaning the celery and peeling the outer layer of the onion. The recipe says to cube the carrots and potatoes, so I did as best I could. The onion and celery I just chopped. 

       The stew meat was already cut into chunks, so I didn't have anything to do there.  Why not buy the package of pre-cut chunked meat, if you can? Again, this recipe was so easy. I put the vegetables in my cast iron dutch oven, mixed them around, added the meat, the cup of tomato juice and 3 tablespoons of tapioca. The recipe calls for Minute (brand) tapioca, but I simply couldn't find any brand of tapioca pearls anywhere, so had to buy a box off of Amazon.  The last two ingredients are salt and pepper, which you add to your personal taste.  I prefer to salt and pepper my food when I plate it, so I didn't add any during cooking.  

    So, that's it! I put the cover on my dutch oven and placed it in my oven, which I had pre-heated to 250 degrees.  As I think I've mentioned before, my oven is wonky and I had to guess at the temperature, but I think I did good, because at the end of the five hour cooking time, when I took that lid off, it looked pretty perfect.  I had that stews were "soupy", but this one isn't, there's only one cup of liquid added, so it wasn't "soupy".  I'll have you know my house smelled really good and the stew was delicious. 

    This would make a perfect meal with a nice, crusty french bread, garlic bread or rolls and a side salad.  I really liked this dish, because of how easy it was. The five hours was a long cook time, but the recipe also says it can be made in a crock-pot. There was no time give for making it in a crock-pot, so maybe still five hours? On low? Or maybe, eight hours on low? So, maybe it is one of those things you can prep the night before, toss in your crock-pot, go to work and then come home to a delicious meal all ready for you. 

    Would I make this recipe again? 100% I would make this again and I wouldn't change anything about it. You could get several servings out of this, but I don't like to say how many, because you know we don't all take the same size serving. IF I had to hazard a guess, I'd say at least 4-5 servings.  So, I hope you try this one out.  Let me know how you like it.