Steak, Ale and Mushroom Pie

Pies are one of the great British foods. I've never attempted to make a pie before so I decided to try one out. I found multiple recipes for the type of pie I wanted to make, which are here, here, and here but they all had an ingredient I didn't have, so I decided to make one on my own accord with these three recipes as a fall-back. In the end these are the ingredients I used:

Chopped beef steak
Mushrooms
Ale
Onion
Vegetable oil
Worcestershire sauce
Tomato ketchup
Mustard
Gravy Granules
Plain flour
Store-bought shortcrust pastry
Salt and pepper

I started by cooking the onions in a generous amount of oil until softened. Then I added the chopped steak and cooked until just browned. The mushrooms went in next with a bit more oil and they were cooked a few minutes. Next I added half the bottle of ale. It fizzed a lot! I stirred consistently. I added a dash of Worcestershire sauce, tomato ketchup and mustard according to my taste, and then the a bit more ale after it had simmered for a few minutes. Then I added some boiling water and gravy granules to thicken it up a bit and salt and pepper to taste. I let it simmer and ending up adding all the ale by adding a little at a time, and let it simmer some more. Keep testing the meat - I wanted to get it tender. I did add a few separate spoonfuls of flour to thicken the sauce further, and simmered in between adding it.

I didn't have a pie dish so I had to make do with a quiche dish wrapped in foil as otherwise it would have leaked out the bottom! It was a bit shallow but worked out fine in the end.

When I was happy with the thickness of the sauce and tenderness of the meat I poured it into my makeshift pie dish then covered it with store-bought shortcrust pastry. I had to trim to size and cut a small hole in the top so air could escape. This is my pie in the oven! I baked it for about 40 minutes - until I thought the pastry looked cooked enough.

Perfect accompaniment - peas! The pie was delicious, especially with some hot gravy poured over it.

This didn't last long.