Saturday 26 January 2013

Hobgoblin Pies

Fear not however the hobgoblin in these pies isn't of the faery  persuasion, but is a reference to the Hobgoblin real ale lurking within their rich gravy.

In winter I like my food to be of the hearty variety and these pies are certainly that. In these cost conscious days it is also important that we all make the most of every scrap of food and stretch expensive meat as far as we can.


By any other name these are steak and ale pies.

Just after Christmas I cooked just over 1/2lb skirt steak with onions, carrots, water, herbs and hobgoblin ale in the slow cooker. ( I used just under 1/2 a can of ale - the rest? - Cooks perk ; D )I made four small individual pies using shortcrust pastry and although there was enough filling for a fifth pie I ran out of pastry so I popped the last portion in the freezer.

Two of the first four pies were eaten as a main evening meal with roast potatoes and mushy peas. The other two were taken to work for lunches.

So that left the final albeit somewhat small portion in the freezer. This was duly defrosted and eked out with a small diced cooked potato (just nuked for 5 minutes in the microwave) and a handful of frozen peas. With the added veggies I was able to divide it between two individual pie dishes. I then decided to top each dish off with a suet crust. I chose a suet crust because it was easy to make just enough for the two pies. I used 2oz of self raising flour and 1oz suet, mixed with just enough water to make a pastry which was divided into two and each piece rolled to just cover the top of the pie dishes.

We had one each of these served with roast potatoes, popped into the oven to cook at the same time as the pies and some stir fried cabbage. 

So from 1/2lb of stewing beef, that's 6 pies or three hearty meals for two.

How do you stretch your ingredients?

6 comments:

  1. These sound really good especially the ones with the suet crust.

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  2. Just reading about those pies and looking at the lovely photos is making me hungry ... and its only breakfast time!
    Liz @ Shortbread & Ginger

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  3. These pies sound really good. I love a steak and ale pie in the winter!

    I love it when you can stretch out ingrediants, we have learnt particularly with beef if we cut our joint into either two or three (depending on size of joint) portions and freeze them. we get a lot more for our money. There is only four of us my girls dont eat loads and we usually end up having beef for sunday lunch and the next day with oven chips using just one portion! Its a great way to eat well but stretching the meat as far as poss.

    Guess what we are having or sunday lunch today? lol.

    P x

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  4. Well, you probably won't be surprised to know, in answer to your question, in exactly the same way as you. I also batch cook beef in the slow cooker and then make several different meals from it. We will have slow cooked (in the oven this time) beef next weekend, either with some cider or real ale (lots of small breweries round here!) lots of root veggies, and I will get at least two meals from it, one of which will be the suet crust topped pie, which like you, I love to make for its speed and never-goes-wrongness! And with mushy peas and roasties, not exactly calorie conscious but it's not every day you have it.

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  5. Those pies sound delicious - I don't think you can beat beef and veg as a pie bottom! Jx

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  6. Your pastry looks delicious my lovely!!
    We don't eat meat, but I stretch my lentil bolognese by adding loads of veggies to it..mmmmm...

    Hope you're well and happy my dear, and Flic's doing good. Thankyou so much for your lovely comment on my blog. It's always lovely to hear from you. :)
    Take care and wrap up warm.
    Donna xxx

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