A pie made with leftover roast beef
Had a delicious Sunday roast? And are you wondering what to do with the leftovers? Then bake a roast beef pie. This recipe uses your leftover roast beef to make a delicious pie that is filled to the brim with veggies. It is the perfect comforting meal after an exhausting Monday.
How to make roast beef
In case you don’t have a recipe for how to make roast beef, I will quickly explain how to make plain roast beef. I like to roast it in a Dutch oven because that way I can sear the meat in the same pan as I roast it in.
You will always want to sear your meat when roasting it. You can do this in a hot pan with some butter or in the oven for 30 minutes at 220 C.
After searing, you can take it out of the pan and add half a pint of beef stock and bring that to the boil. Then add the beef back to the pan and roast in the oven at 170 C. A meat thermometer makes things a lot easier, but roast for 1 hour per kg plus an extra 30 minutes.
Roast at 170 C, 1 hour per kg + 30 minutes.
Roast beef pie
This pie is a breeze to make, although it will take more or less time depending on your use of a food processor. Personally, I love the almost meditative state you get into when finely dicing vegetables. But if you use a food processor or even just grate the veggies or chop them more coarsely, of course, it will change the texture of the pie, but it would still be delicious.
Shortcrust pie crust
For the pie crust, you can choose to use a storebought pastry or replace the shortcrust pastry with some flaky puff pastry. I like making my own pastry since I have a ginormous 25 kg bag of flour and only a tiny freezer for storebought pastry. And if you do have a food processor, then making the pastry is even simpler. You simply add the flour with a pinch of salt to the food processor, add in the cubed butter, and blitz the whole batch. Once it resembles breadcrumbs, you slowly add the milk until it forms a ball.
When you dress your pie dish, you want to make sure you’ve greased the inside and possibly floured it as well to prevent any of the pie from sticking to the sides.
The gravy
I love adding gravy powder to all my pies, sometimes only a tiny bit, and other times like with my gravy pie, a lot of it. Gravy makes everything tastier and creates all the comforting food feels. And should therefore be eaten several times a week. Just kidding. Or am I? If you’re one of those unfortunate enough to not have easy access to wholesome gravy powder. You might want to use some cornflour with some stock of your choice, and ideally some flavourful fats. I always keep my excess roasting and frying fats in a jar in my fridge for when I need an extra flavour boost.
Serving roast beef pie
Serve your pies while still hot from the oven, either as your main dish or as a side dish if you’re having guests. If you want to serve it as a side dish, I would recommend serving some green veggies along with it. Since the pie is filled with mainly root vegetables. Of course, some roast potatoes are always delicious, and pouring over some extra gravy makes every meal even more delicious.
I like to eat my pies with a bit of Colman’s mustard, but my husband likes to sprinkle some chilli flakes on his. How do you prefer to eat your pies?
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Vegetable and beef pie
Equipment
- 26 cm Ø pie dish, or an oven dish that will hold about 1,5 liters.
Ingredients
Pie crust
- 250 gr plain flour
- 110 gr butter
- 3 to 4 tbsp milk or water
- pinch salt leave out if using salted butter
Pie filling
- 300 gr beef leftover from the Sunday roast
- 250 gr swede rutabaga
- 5 medium onions
- 4 medium carrots
- 4 stalks celery
- 4 tsp gravy powder
- 1 tsp marmite add more to taste
- ½ pint beef stock
- salt & pepper to taste
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 220 °C
Pie crust
- In a medium bowl mix the flour and salt.
- Cube the butter and add to the bowl, then using a pastry blender or your hands rub the butter into the flour.
- Once it resembles breadcrumbs, add in the milk bit by bit until it forms a ball.
- Leave to rest in the fridge for about 10 minutes.
- Roll out and line your greased pie dish, save ⅓ of the pastry for the top of the pie.
Pie filling
- Firstly dice up some onions and saute them in a pan with a drizzle of oil.
- Dice the rest of the vegetables into equal cubes, then add to the pan and mix in with the onions.If you have a food processor then you can use that to dice up the veggies.
- If you're not using leftover roast beef then, you will want to dice and fry some beef.If you do have leftover roast beef then dice that, and then add it to the pan.
- Add in the gravy powder (see notes if you don't have gravy powder) and mix well into the veggie mix.
- Add in the half-pint of beef stock and the teaspoon of marmite.
- Stir and bring to a boil, then let simmer for 5 to 10 minutes while stirring occasionally.
- Add the pie filling to the prepared pie dish and place the lid on top.
- After putting the lid on the pie, either crimp or roll the edges over, then glaze the top of the pie with a little bit of milk.Don't forget, to poke a little hole with your knife in the middle of the pie, so that the air can escape.
- Bake in a preheated oven for 30 to 45 minutes or until golden brown.
Notes
The gravy powder doesn’t just add flavour but also works as a thickening agent, you can use the same amount of cornflour that the recipe calls for and add either more marmite or half of a stock cube. For a vegetarian option:
Roast or grill some mushrooms with some oil and herbs and use those instead of the beef.
Use potato instead of beef if you don’t like mushrooms.
And of course, use vegetable stock instead of beef stock.
