Ed Baines prepares a steak and oyster pie

Making a pie can seem like a daunting process. But with the right guidance, especially from a renowned chef, you can create works of art in your very own home. A recipe from the lips of our  very own Ed Baines, who is head chef at Randall & Aubin, you’ll never want to eat anything else again once you serve this decadent delight.

Ingredients

• 500g of beef rump steak (chuck beef) or stewing steak cut into 1 inch cubes
• 2 x 85g tins of smoked oysters in sunflower oil
• 1 tsp. celery salt
• 2 carrots finely chopped
• 2 small onions finely chopped (large onions are tasteless)
• 1 tbsp. of malt vinegar
• 1 small bunch of parsley finely chopped
• 2 level tbsp. of plain flour
• 400ml of Guinness
• 250ml beef stock
• 90g of lard
• 2 medium sized tomatoes (finely chopped and salted)
• 1/2 tsp. Tabasco sauce
• 500g shortcrust pastry
• 1 egg

Method

1. Lightly grease a 25-cm enamel plate with lard. Roll out the pastry and line the enamel plate, then roll out the excess pastry to make a cover for the pie and place this cover on a plate and put both in the fridge to rest. 
2. Put the meat into a large bowl and evenly coat the meat with some flour and celery salt. In a large casserole pot, heat the lard until smoking temperature and add the small portions of the beef at a time (leaving the remaining flour in the dish), for about 1 to 2 minutes. 
3. Remove the beef, leaving the juice in the pot, and place on a plate. Add the chopped vegetables to the boiling lard remaining in the pot. As the vegetables start to soften, add the remaining flour from the bowl, add the parsley and stir for 1 minute. 
4. Now add the freshly chopped tomatoes and reintroduce the beef in their juice to the pot. Leave the dish to cook slowly for an hour and a half on a low temperature, stirring every ten minutes. 
5. Preheat the oven to 180C/Gas 4. 
6. After 90 minutes, add the smoked oysters to the slow cooked beef. Allow for the meat to be chilled before adding it to the pastry. 
7. Now take out your pre-rolled pastry and brush the base and sides with a beaten egg before spooning in the chilled filling. Brush around the overhanging edges of the pie with a beaten egg so it forms a glue to stick to the top cover of the pie. Place the chilled meat in the pastry-lined dish and cover the meat filling with the overhanging pastry dough. 
8. Brush the top of the pie all over with the beaten egg and place in the fridge for 20 minutes to make sure it does not shrink. Put the pie into the preheated oven for about 30 minutes and remove when golden brown. Allow to rest for 5 minutes, and serve.

Easy. Ish. But definitely rewarding. If you’re the type of person who worries constantly about following a recipe correctly, then we have a treat for you (plus a little blast from the past): A video of Ed making this very same recipe! Hallelujah. All you have to do is click here and watch the master at work.