Beef & Red Wine Pie

Ingredients

• 900g beef chuck, cut into 3cm chunks
• 400ml beef stock
• 15g plain flour (for dusting)
• 1 large carrot, peeled and diced
• 1 tbsp tomato purée
• Salt & freshly ground black pepper, to taste
• 1 large onion, finely chopped
• 3 garlic cloves, crushed
• 1 tsp dried thyme
• 1 bay leaf
• 300ml red wine
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 25g unsalted butter
• 1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
• 1 egg, beaten (for glaze)
• 320g ready-rolled shortcrust pastry
• Crusty sourdough bread, to serve
• Fresh parsley, to serve

Method

1. Heat the oven to 200°C (fan 180°C). Pat the beef chunks properly dry with kitchen paper — water means steam, and steam means no browning. Toss in the flour and season generously with salt and pepper before it hits the pan.
2. Heat the olive oil and half the butter in a large ovenproof casserole over medium-high heat until the butter is foaming. Brown the beef in two or three batches, 3–4 minutes a side, until each chunk has a deep mahogany crust. Don't crowd the pan — all at once and the pan crowds, water comes out, and you've boiled the meat instead of browning it. Lift onto a plate.
3. Drop the remaining butter into the pot and add the onion and carrot. Soften for 6–8 minutes until sweet, glossy and just catching gold at the edges. Stir in the garlic and tomato purée and cook for 30 seconds, just until fragrant — burnt garlic turns the whole pot bitter, so watch it and don't let it go past pale gold.
4. Return the beef and any resting juices to the pot. Pour in the red wine, scraping up the sticky brown bits welded to the base — that's pure flavour, and the wine lifts every bit of it. Bubble hard for 4–5 minutes until reduced by about a third and no longer sharp on the nose.
5. Pour in the hot beef stock and add the thyme, bay leaf and Worcestershire sauce. Season again, bring to a gentle simmer, then cover and slide into the oven. Braise for 90 minutes, until a chunk gives way under a fork and the gravy clings glossily to the back of the spoon.
6. Lift out the casserole, fish out the bay leaf and skim any fat pooling on the surface. Taste, season, taste again — adjust now, not at the table. It should be deeply savoury with a faint sweetness from the wine. Spoon into a 23cm pie dish and leave to cool for 20 minutes; warm gravy steams the pastry and you'll end up with a soggy lid.
7. Unroll the shortcrust over the dish, pressing the edges firmly onto the rim. Trim the overhang and crimp with a fork or your thumb. Brush generously with beaten egg and cut a small steam vent in the centre — without it, the lid puffs and splits where you don't want it to.
8. Bake at 200°C for 25–30 minutes until the lid is deeply golden and burnished, with dark gravy bubbling thickly at the crimped edges.
9. Rest the pie for 10 minutes so the filling settles and stops molten. Scatter the chopped parsley over the burnished lid and serve in deep spoonfuls straight from the dish, with buttered peas or mash piled alongside.