Spot the Etonian flag :)
After the festive fun and family conviv. of Christmas, Boxing Day comes as pleasant "breather," time to relax and take it easy.
Walk the dog to the nearest Pick 'n Steal, reflect on Stephen the Martyr, it's his Feast today, as you stroll down the boulevards of Olde Dallas, and return to HQ for an easy lunch. Warm bread, cheese, dates and grapes, raise a glass to the Incarnate Word, slumber over books on antedeluvia and then...
Return to the fray to make pie. Yes, beef and mushroom pie from the leftovers of yesterday's feast, it's not hard. Cut the beef off the bone(s), chop up an onion, some garlic and celery and saute in 3 Tbs butter till tender and fragrant. Add three Tbs of flour and stir it up, then add beef stock. Well done, you've got this far, but you're not there yet.
Let everything simmer and stir, like a faculty revolt at Harvard, and add the beef. This is key, obviously. While the meat's simmering in the mix, saute some mushrooms in butter till golden and add those too, along with some red wine, and let it all cook to desired consistency.
That done, turn off the heat, add yesterdays cooked carrots to the mix and allow the delicious pie filling to rest and cool. Have a glass of the right stuff, listen to Handel, shoot some 5.56, sharpen a kukri, whatever, your call, no rule, and in God's good time roll out some pastry. Good work, fill a pie dish with its filling, cover with jolly old pastry and fire it all into the oven at 400.
Let that beast cook for 20 minutes or so until golden brown, you can even glaze the pastry with an egg yolk if you like, then fall upon your scoff.
Like a Warrior,
LSP
12 comments:
Pour encourager les Déplorables.
Another good meat pie is Cataline Pie.
Easy version is:
Pie crust for top and bottom.
Beef, cooked, about a pound (ground or roast beast chopped finely)
can of whole berry cranberry sauce
can of apple pie filling
(optional - some moist raisins)
1 tsp of Cinnamon
1/4 tsp Nutmeg
Chop up the apple pie filling, stir in the cranberry sauce and meat and spices, heat in microwave or on stove to melt everything together.
Place in pie, cover with sheet of pie crust.
Bake at 350 for about half an hour or so, till the crust is nicely brown. Serve hot or cold.
Seriously, this one is a keeper and a Beans' family favorite. Good hot for the winter, or cold as a lunch.
Also can be done as individual tarts (using cupcake pans.)
Why is British cuisine put down? I'd gladly eat that.
it look like rockem/sockem robots fron the 60's
There was a special on the Food Network way back in the late 90’s early 00’s (This was when “The Two Fat Ladies” were still on the air) and it touched on English cuisine and the industrial revolution. The host said, “Nowadays the finest English homes have French cooks, but back during the 18th century all of the finest French homes had English cooks.”
Again, the host went on to explain that it was during the industrial revolution that English cooking underwent the horrible transformation that we know and associate it with today.
Exactly, Wild.
Beans, that sounds delicious. I'll give it a go.
Right, WSF, good country food and practical to boot.
I think part of the problem is the post-war years of rationing which had a predictable result. Go back pre-WWI and British menus etc seemed as good as any if not better. Of course they were rich then.
Well spotted, halfczech!
Very good call, Anon, and I used to enjoy the Ladies.
And of course the 18th C was a thing. A friend of the family once said to me, I was a child, that, "They couldn't make anything that wasn't beautiful." He had a point. The Ind. Rev.? Not so much and we're living in the hideous aftermath.
How that applies to cooking is another essay again!
The nice thing about Cataline Pie is that it isn't pretentious and snobby. It's literally a medieval/Italian renaissance meat and fruit pie. Adjust ingredients to your liking and enjoy.
Back when I was a wage slave for a certain organization, pulling out a slice of Cataline pie for lunch was fun.
Beans, totally with you -- hate snobby, pretentious, absurd, showy, degenerate, overpriced food.
I'll give that pie a shot.
On topic, do you go to restaurants? I rarely do but back when I did, a job thing, I'd go to the then beautiful Stafford Hotel's dining room for dinner (they've ruined it) and got to know the menu, which was good if Frenchy.
Well, had enough of that, couldn't eat it anymore, so I asked the waiter to get me a cheese omelette and chips. He replied, in a faked up French accent, "Would sir like ketchup on his chips?"
I sat stunned at the sheer, dam impudence while Viscount Furness struck the table and thundered, "He'll eat what he dam well wants to eat!"
The idiotic waiter retreated in shame.
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