Venison Pie
From Pie; Angela Boggiano
Filling
40g dried wild mushrooms
25g plain flour
1 tbsp fresh thyme
1kg diced venison (don’t chop this too small, keep to a cube of about 3 to 4 cm per side)
2 tbsp olive oil
400g peeled whole shallots
2 cloves of garlic, chopped
2 tbsp muscavado sugar
500ml dark ale such as Theakston’s Old Peculiar
300ml beef stock
2 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
2 tbsp Dijon mustard
Salt and ground black pepper
Pastry
Use either flaky (buy this, life is too short) or shortcrust - enough for your dish, a regular pie dish uses about 300g shortcrust, which is 200g plain flour, 50g butter, 50g lard and a pinch of salt.
Method
Pour boiling water over the mushrooms and leave them to soak whilst preparing the rest of the pie filling.
Put the flour in a large bowl and mix in the thyme, salt and a decent amount of black pepper. Add the venison to the flour and coat the meat thoroughly with the flour mixture.
Put about 1 tbsp of oil into the pan, heat, and then add the whole shallots and fry until they start to colour and soften, add the garlic and fry for another minute, then remove from the pan and set aside.
Add the venison to the pan and brown all over (you may need to do this in batches) Once this is all cooked then add all the meat back into the pan along with the shallots and the garlic. Stir in the sugar and heat for a couple of minutes, then add the ale, the beef stock, the Worcestershire sauce, the mustard, the mushrooms and about 100mls of the soaking liquid from the mushrooms. Cover the pan and let it simmer* for about 2 hours until the meat is tender and the sauce thick and glossy. Spoon into your pie dish and leave to cool completely.
*You can also transfer the whole lot to a slow cooker and cook for about 5 to 6 hours. This works just as well.
Preheat your oven to 200 deg C, roll out your pastry to cover the top of the dish, if necessary, and if you have one, use a pastry funnel in the middle of the dish to support the centre of the pastry. Trim the excess pastry from the dish and crimp the edge. Brush the top with beaten egg and put a hole in the middle to let the steam out.
Bake for 30 to 35 minutes until the pastry is crisp and golden.