now we're slow cookin'!

so when i was watching the next installment of jamie's kitchen a couple of weeks ago and saw him make a steak & guinness pie i thought it would be exactly the kind of homecoming slow cooked meal i wanted to make for michael. but alas, the recipe was nowhere to be found. luckily, i obsessively dvr my favorite cooking shows and have a community of eager cooks. that is to say--(following our literary food foray) m. and a.m. and i watched the episode no less than four times and took note of how many "knobs" of butter or "handfulls" of cheese got thrown in the dutch oven (the big winner of the kitchen covet tool, by the way, by the winter cooks!). then in a true stone soup kind of moment there we were chopping up bushels of organic carrots, whizzing crimini mushrooms in the food processor and even doing a quick dash in the alley to pick rosemary.

here it is, then, our recipe as translated and executed:

the ingredient list:

• olive oil, salt & pepper
• 3 red onions
• fresh rosemary
• 3 garlic cloves
• 2 ribs of celery
• 2 carrots
• handful of portabello or crimini mushrooms
• 1 1/2-2 lbs. chopped brisket of beef
• 1 can guinness
• beef broth (but perhaps this could have been eliminated? or just very little used)
• flour
• butter (we indulged by using irish butter--avail. at trader joe's)
• frozen puff pastry
• egg for brushing pastry
• 2-3 generous handfuls cheddar cheese (we used a combination of tilamook sharp and irish cheddar--you can get a hearty chunk from costco)
  

the simmer down:
using our le creuset(s) dutch oven we sautéd the onions with a generous drizzle of olive oil (we also added butter for richness--i have been quoted btw as saying "something magical happens when you combine olive oil and butter"), fresh ground pepper, sea salt (i think kosher would work fine) and with a few cloves of garlic (j. used a zester to grate the garlic in the mixture but this quickly got tiresome and i resorted to a press) until carmelized. this truly is the heart of the recipe--the pungency of the raw red onions take on such an intensely savory sweet flavor and turn a deep, near burgundy-black color. since we were cooking for three pies we spent a good 30-45 minutes slowly cooking the onions down before adding the veggies. but the sweet, rich, savory flavor of the onions was well worth it.

add the good stuff
with the onions ready we added our diced celery, chopped carrots, sliced mushrooms and cubed beef to the pot. then we poured in the guinness, scraping up the savory browned bits from the onions (nb.--you do not brown or sear the beef--it will stew in the oven). then we added 1 T of flour and enough stock to top but not cover the meat. the pot was covered and we baked the stew at 350 for about 2 hours.

roll it up
we reconvened and rolled out our puff pastry. we used a full sheet until it was the right size for our pan with the extra dough hanging over the sides--we had a variety of vessels: an emile henry ceramic pie dish, a white corningware oval baker, and a glazed ceramic rectangular bowl. i'm pretty sure j. would support this ecclecticism here: it's rustic so just go with what you have. since we were actually assembling three pies we divvyed up 4 rolls--splititng the fourth into thirds for the top but one roll would be fine split 2/3; 1/3. the top sheet we scored diagonally and set aside.

the improvised roux
now, we watched j. take the stew out of the oven at least three times and his was coated in a thick gravy and looked mostly meaty. in order to make the pie work, he stressed you needed a dry stew. our stew was pretty soupy--which wasn't surprising after all the veggies broke down--so we strained the meat and veggie mixture and divided it among our pies along with a handful or so of grated cheese. then we looked at that rich, savory goodness and had an inspired moment of and whipped up a roux by by mixing a couple of T of butter with about equal amounts of flour and then slowly added enough liquid back until we had a gravy which we drizzled in our meat/veggie filled pies. finally, we added another handful of cheese and the top pastry sheet. to seal the sides and ensure a golden top we brushed (like literally with a paint brush) the pastry with a whisked egg.

last bake and voilá
the pies then went home to our respective ovens, were baked at 350 for 30-40 minutes at which point the pastry was golden and crisp and the pie was bubbling and the cheese was melting. we served ours in generous spoonfulls over peas. mmmmmmm.