Beef Pot Pie

Beef Pot Pie uses my Sicilian style spetzzatino and turns in into a comfort dish. For Italians spetzzatino is any type of meat cut into cubes and cooked into stew form. We cook it in different ways. Sometimes we add potatoes. Typically other vegetables add flavour. My mom makes an excellent one with only onions and beef. The sauce turns into a brown, velvety and thick show piece. As a result, we use bread to sop up every last bite. Today I like to use a pie shell in place of the bread.

Know Where Your Meat Comes From

Today the star of my dish is the beef. I have my local butcher cut it and it is exquisite. He sources all the meat locally and I know we are eating top quality beef. Our local beef is supplemented with organic whole non-GMO grains and this gives it extra sweetness and tenderness. It is always best to ask your butcher if the beef was fed antibiotics. I don’t want to eat meat from an animal that was confined to a pen all it’s life. It is also important to know that the animals were treated humanly. Lately, I watched some horrifying videos. We don’t eat a lot of beef; and so, I want a good quality meat when we do enjoy it. I also want to be grateful for these animals that sustain us and that is why, I buy local.

Another one of my recipes that uses stewing beef https://recipesatmytable.com/lentil-beef-barley-soup/

Ingredients for beef pot pie

• 1 lb cubed beef
• 1/2 cup flour
• 1/2 tsp sweet paprika
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 1 tbs butter
• 2 medium carrots
• 2 celery stalks
• 1 medium onion
• 4 small tomatoes diced
• 1 1/2 cups beef broth
• 1/2 cup red wine
• salt and pepper1 tbsp woreshetshire sauce

Pie Crust

• 1 1/2 cups flour
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 2 tbsp cold water1 egg
• 1 tsp white vinegar

Process

I always make my pie dough first and wrap it up and place it in  the refrigerator.

The beef is from my local butcher. Then place the flour in a dish and add the paprika. Ensure that each piece is coated. The coating helps thicken the sauce.

Place the butter and olive oil in a large frying pan and brown each piece of beef. I did this in two batches.

The Vegetables

Next prepare all your vegetables by pulsing them into a food processor. This gives you a fine, rich and thick sauce. I also cut my tomatoes into quarters.

Add these vegetables to the meat juices in your pan and sauté for a few minutes. Next go in with the beef and stir.

Pour in the beef broth, the wine and the woreshetshire sauce. Simmer on Medium low for about 40 minutes.

Take your pie dough and remove 1/3 of the dough for the top of the pie. I roll out my pie dough and set the oven to 375 F. Put it in for 10 minutes.

Remove the crust. Raise the oven to 400 and scoop out the filling into the pie with a large spoon. Leave about a cup of sauce in the pan for serving. Brush the top of the pie and place it in the oven for 45 minutes. Reduce the oven temperature to 375 F after 15 minutes.

A beautiful golden pot pie comes out of the oven.

I made some mushy peas to go along with this. I did this by blanching some frozen peas and throwing them into a blender with some butter, cream, salt and pepper. It was the perfect side and reminded me of being in England.

Sliced on a plate with a side of mushy peas and some of the sauce.