Now I don’t have a special big person to be cooking for this year but I do happen to have two very special little people. Who LOVE pie. I mean really love it. Since we returned to England in August they’ve been ecstatic about traditional English pies and until recently their outright favourite was a classic Steak & Ale from local Legges of Bromyard. I don’t blame them, it’s a truly delicious pie packed full of superior quality meat in a more than tasty gravy. They also make a tremendous Venison Pie, Rabbit Pie, Chicken & Tarragon Pie to name a few. Not only do Legges make pies but they’re a quality butchers and top drawer deli brimming with tempting local delicacies too. Handily online too!
I did say Legges’s pie was until recently their favourite. Uncle Julian’s slow cooked beef shin pie has usurped they’re pie love affections. Frannie’s not stopped talking about it since he made it just after Christmas, and was sorely disappointed when he came over on a recent trip from Mallorca and cooked up a roast chicken dinner instead. Oh she moaned about that for days, despite roast chicken ordinarily being one of her favourite dinners!. So as a Valentines treat I decided to bag the recipe off my brother and bake them a special Love Pie. Which also handily doubled up as a birthday pie for my dear Dad’s 76th celebrations on Sunday. Afterall it was him that introduced to me the wonderful world of Legges Pies! Sadly he was a bit under the weather on the big day and didn’t get to fully appreciate it, but the kids and I did.
The recipe calls for a very long slow braising of the meat, which can either be beef shin or beef (ox) cheeks, or even pig cheeks which apparently taste like beef when cooked this way. Braising in the oven covered with a cartouche (a paper layer to prevent moisture sneaking off), but as I so happened to have taken delivery of my first ever slow cooker (I know, it took me a while!) it was destined for a bit of a trial. And a trial that definitely paid off as it was equally as delicious and as tender as tender falling apart melting beef can be. Result!.
I should admit to you now this pie is totally out of my normal Eat Your Veg style, in that there’s practically zero veggies in there! Oh the crime. I was initially sceptical but Julian assured me you cannot achieve the same depth of flavour with more than a mere finely chopped carrot and a scant onion for the entire pot. Ouch. But on tasting I’m not going to argue. The sauce is unctuous, uber-rich, decadent, dreamy and quite possibly the best beef stew I’ve ever been lucky enough to sample. And truly the best ever vessel for my special love pie. Since it takes such a long time for the beef to cook it seems more sensible to make in a large quantity, but feel free to halve to serve just four. It’s also not the cheapest pie to make either, taking an entire litre of red wine in the making. But just pick something cheap, I really doubt you’d notice otherwise.
I used bought puff pastry for this pie, but I’ve regularly made my own rough puff in the past to glorious results. The pie can either be made in a large family size or eight smaller individual love pies, which have an added cute appeal to the little people. You can either cover all the tops in a layer of pastry and decorate with a few cut outs if you wish OR employ a quickie fun cheat and cut out eight pastry hearts (or other shapes) and bake either on top of the beef OR separately on a lined baking sheet and pop on once cooked.
Do serve with a barrage of veggies to make up for the absence of too much good stuff in the pie! I must admit to going a little wild with this and served up no less than six veggies and two types of potato.
Being as this most definitely is now our favourite winter warmer recipe I’m entering my post to The Co-operative Electrical‘s ‘Favourite Winter Warmer Recipe‘ competition. Would you believe the winner scoops a whooping £750.00 prize to spend in store, and believe me having recently found myself living alone with the two monsters there’s genuinly a few unaffordable gaps in electrical gear around my house! There’s also a hefty runners up prize of £250.00.
As well as the Co-Operative Comp I’m also entering my Love Pie to quite a few bloggie challenges:
1. To Family Foodies which I host with Vanesther, as afterall our theme this month is Love and the foods you make to show your kids a little foodie love. I honestly couldn’t think of a dish more appropriate for my two!
2. To Four Seasons Food which I host with Anneli who happens to be hosting this month’s Food from the Heart challenge. I don’t think I need to explain my entry!
3. To Cooking with Herbs hosted by Karen at the gorgeous Lavender and Lovage blog. This month there’s a dual theme of Chinese New Year and Valentines and since I’ve just rosemary I definitely qualify.
4. To Elizabeth’s Kitchen’s Shop Local event as my beef came from local Hereford new-to-me butchers Oglebys, rosemary from my Mum’s garden, veggies (barely a plural there I’m afraid!) from my veg box supplied by local Skylark Organics and rapeseed oil from nearby Brockmanton Oils.
5. And for my first ever time I’m mightily chuffed to be entering the Slow Cooker Challenge hosted by Janice over at Farmersgirl Kitchen. The first of many hopefully.