These pies are just the perfect size for dinner and elegant enough for a party. Because you are using puff pastry you don’t even need to make your own crust. We placed the puff pastry just on the top of the dish instead of lining the dish with pastry for a much lighter dinner.
Individual Beef Pies
Servings: 4
Ingredients
- 1 Tbsp vegetable oil
- 2 onions chopped
- 1 pound chuck steak or stew meat diced
- 1 ½ cup beef stock not broth
- 1/2 cup red wine
- 1 ¼ Tbsp Worcestershire sauce
- 2 ½ Tbsp tomato paste
- 2 Tbsp all-purpose flour
- 4 Tbsp water
- salt and pepper to taste
- 1 sheet puffed pastry thawed
- 1 egg slightly beaten
Instructions
Filling
- Preheat oven to 400°. Heat oil in large saucepan over high heat.
- Add onions and cook for 3 minutes or until soft.
- Add steak to pan and cook for 4 minutes or until meat is seared (browned).
- Add stock, wine, Worcestershire sauce and tomato paste. Reduce heat and simmer, uncovered for 50 minutes or until meat is tender.
- Combine flour and water into a paste and stir into meat mixture. Bring mixture to boil and stir for 1 minute (it will have the consistency of melted chocolate).
- Season to taste with salt and pepper, cool.
Pastry
- Rollout pastry on a lightly floured surface until it is 1/8" thick.
- Cut pastry so that it will have a slight overhang on the small pie tins (at least 8 oz. in capacity) or mini cocottes.
Assembly
- Place filling in bases and top with formed pastry circles and crimp.
- Want to get fancy? From pastry scraps, use pie cutters or cut out letters or numbers and place on top of pie.
- Brush pie tops with egg and place pies in the oven.
- Bake for 15-20 minutes or until pastry is puffed and golden.
Notes
To make these pies more interesting add sliced mushrooms when you add the flour and water. They will cook while the mixture is cooling.