Steak and kidney pie

We had just started tucking the steak and kidney pie, when i remembered to take a photo.  That's it on the left, with Tara's mini vegetarian one on the right - portabello mushrooms to make up for the missing steak.  You would think, by the way, that Tara amongst others, is called a vegetarian because she only eats vegetables.  Apparently, though that is wrong - the word vegetarian doesn't come from the word vegetables, but from the latin word "vegetus", which means fresh and lively.

We had a lovely meal, even if i say so myself, with blinis to start (we managed to stop angus eating them all before everyone else arrived), the steak and kidney pie with the onion mush and petit pois a la francaise, followed by turkish delight figs, done deliciously by tara.  My crust didn't perform brilliantly - i forgot to add the pie tunnel in the middle, which apparently helps the steam escape and cook the pastry.

- Finely chop 2 onions, 1 carrot, 1/2 stick celery and 3 sage leaves and heat in a pan in 4 tablespoons olive oil for about 5 mins until soft.
- Remove and add to a casserole dish, then add 2 tablespoons butter to the pan and cook 200g sliced mushrooms and 1 tablespoon chopped parsley for a few mins, then add the casserole.
- Spinkle 4 tablespoons flour on a plate, add lots of grated nutmeg and pepper, then coat 500g stewing steak chunks and 250g kidneys in the flour.
- Brown the steak in the pan in another 2 tablespoons of oil and remove to the casserole.
- Add 200ml beef stock and 200ml stout or red wine to the casserole, stir well, season and cook for 2 hours in the oven at 150C.
- Move to a pie dish and leave to cool.
- Make the pastry by adding together 200g self raising flour, 2 teaspoons baking powder, fresh nutmeg and 100g suet, then gradually stir in 100ml water until you have a soft paste.
- Roll out into a fat disc about 1/2 cm thick, using the off cuts to coat the rims of the pie dish first.
- Cook for 30 mins at 190C, covering in foil if the top looks like burning.

Call me old fashioned, but i don't consider this to be a proper pie - for me, a pie has to have a complete covering of pastry, but i recognise that i might be in the minority here.  Despite some googling, this is also not a generally accepted definition - what i am talking about is a "two crust pie" apparently and this recipe is a "one crust pie".  However, i feel i have history on my side, as the origin of the pie, was to encrust the ingredients in pastry so as to preserve them - wikianswers confirms it just in case!

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