It’s knee-knockingly good comfort food!
A big, fat, Family Meat Pie
It dawned on me yesterday that the traits of my very favourite meat-based foods lie at opposite ends of the spectrum. Give me either the spanking freshness of raw stuff (think: sushi, ceviche, tartare) or the melt-in-your-mouth-tender perfection of slow-cooked meat smothered in a rich sauce like shanks, short ribs, pulled pork, stews. 🤩 There’s plenty of good stuff that falls in between. But if you want to win me over*, bring me a tuna carpaccio or a slow cooked lasagna. Or – a big fat Meat Pie!
- Or just give Dozer a lot of attention. Actually, this is the most effective method!
Anatomy of an awesome Family Meat Pie
Here’s a breakdown of what makes up a great Aussie meat pie:
Ingredients in Family Meat Pie filling
Here’s what goes in the Family Meat Pie filling: The secret ingredient in this meat pie sauce is Guinness (or other dark beer or red wine) which makes it dark and rich as well as adding a stack of flavour. It puts your basic store bought pies to shame!
Chuck beef – A cut of beef made for slow cooking that breaks down into fall-apart goodness, ideal for using for meat pie fillings. Alternative cuts: boneless short ribs (but it’s fattier and pricier), beef osso buco (cook on bone then discard later) and beef cheeks (but the beef pieces will buckle rather than stay in neat cubes). Not recommended: brisket (a bit stringy), steaks and other quick cooking cuts of beef, or roasts (too lean and will dry out).Onion and garlic – Essential flavour base for the rich sauce. Carrots, celery and mushrooms – Vegetable add-ins. These introduce a bit of non-meat goodness into the filling. Without it’s meat, meat, meat! Which, while delicious, can be a bit too full-on!Bacon – This is one of my “secret ingredients” in meat pies. Also for sausage rolls, for that matter! It’s sautéed at the beginning so other ingredients can be cooked in the bacon fat. And the bacon releases flavour into the sauce. But no, it doesn’t taste bacon-y at the end!
For the Meat Pie Filling Sauce
The sauce is essentially a very rich stew sauce that is a Beef & Guinness Stew that borrows techniques from a French-style stew like Beef Bourguignon. Yep, we are stealing secrets from the French to make the very best Aussie meat pie! Alternative cuts: boneless short ribs (but it’s fattier and pricier), beef osso buco (cook on bone then discard later) and beef cheeks (but the beef pieces will buckle rather than stay in neat cubes). Not recommended: brisket (a bit stringy), steaks and other quick cooking cuts of beef, or roasts (too lean and will dry out). The flavourful stout beer in this recipe is the reason why there are so few ingredients needed for flavour in the sauce. Red wine can also be used, for a slightly more elegant sauce option – see below for more on this.
Guinness or other stout – This rich, dark beer is a magical ingredient to use in slow cooked dishes because hours of simmering cooks out the alcohol and leaves behind a rich, earthy flavour that you can’t buy in jars. There is no trace of “beery” flavour left at all, just the dark and complex notes from the stout.It also gives the sauce the deep, dark brown colour which is part of the appeal of this filling. Nobody wants a meat pie with a pale filling!Red wine can also be used for a slightly more elegant sauce option (essentially Beef Bourguignon sauce) which is equally as delicious. I opted for Guinness here because it gives the sauce a slightly richer, earthier flavour that Aussies know and love about Meat Pies!Non alcoholic option – The best flavour-boosting alternative would be to add anchovies. It will NOT make it taste fishy but will add some desirable complexity in lieu of beer. See recipe notes for directions.Beef stock – Believe it or not, there is not a huge difference between homemade and store-bought beef stock in this recipe! I was quite surprised because ordinarily, for great classic dishes of the world, I find that homemade beef stock is a key quality that sets apart a good homemade version from an exceptional restaurant quality one (like in Bourguignon and Coq au Vin).However, for the Aussie Meat Pie, I found that store-bought beef stock was almost as good as using homemade. I think it’s because beer does so much more heavy-lifting in the sauce compared to wine.Whichever way you go, I don’t recommend using powdered beef stock.
Flour and butter (sauce thickening) – In today’s recipe, we are thickening the stew using a simple French finishing technique called a Beurre Manié. This is raw flour and softened butter mixed together, and then stirred into a liquid (a sauce usually). It makes the sauce shiny and thick. The idea for this pie is as follows. The sauce needs to be thicker than regular stews else it runs everywhere when you serve a slice of pie. Adding flour at the start means you’re working with an already-thick sauce while it cooks. Thick sauces require regular stirring to ensure it doesn’t catch on the base of the pot but the problem is all this stirring causes the beef pieces that are tender from long cooking to break apart. We want lovely big chunks, not shredded beef!It is much, much easier just to use a Beurre Manié instead to thicken the sauce at the end! (Bonus: You get to sound like a total pro when you tell your family how you made this.)
Base and lid for Meat Pie
Meat Pie Base – The traditional base for Meat Pies is shortcrust pastry. This is a buttery, flaky pastry that is used for things like quiche and sweet pies (like Pumpkin pie, Pecan pie). It also gives the sauce the deep, dark brown colour which is part of the appeal of this filling. Nobody wants a meat pie with a pale filling! Red wine can also be used for a slightly more elegant sauce option (essentially Beef Bourguignon sauce) which is equally as delicious. I opted for Guinness here because it gives the sauce a slightly richer, earthier flavour that Aussies know and love about Meat Pies! Non alcoholic option – The best flavour-boosting alternative would be to add anchovies. It will NOT make it taste fishy but will add some desirable complexity in lieu of beer. See recipe notes for directions. However, for the Aussie Meat Pie, I found that store-bought beef stock was almost as good as using homemade. I think it’s because beer does so much more heavy-lifting in the sauce compared to wine. Whichever way you go, I don’t recommend using powdered beef stock. The idea for this pie is as follows. The sauce needs to be thicker than regular stews else it runs everywhere when you serve a slice of pie. Adding flour at the start means you’re working with an already-thick sauce while it cooks. Thick sauces require regular stirring to ensure it doesn’t catch on the base of the pot but the problem is all this stirring causes the beef pieces that are tender from long cooking to break apart. We want lovely big chunks, not shredded beef! It is much, much easier just to use a Beurre Manié instead to thicken the sauce at the end! (Bonus: You get to sound like a total pro when you tell your family how you made this.) It is ideal for meat pies because it is sturdy enough to hold up to the rich, dense filling. This recipe calls for 800g / 1.6 pounds of beef – this makes quite a bit of filling!Store-bought is fine, but homemade shortcrust pastry really is worth making if you have the time. The flavour is better and also texture.Puff pastry could also be used however for the base, to avoid the need to buy two different pastries. See recipe notes for directions. Meat pie lid – The traditional lid for meat pies is puff pastry. These days, the quality of store-bought is actually very good if you opt for real butter puff pastry. Cheaper puff pastry is made with oil rather than butter so it doesn’t tastes as nice and doesn’t puff up as well.If you make your own, I will be mighty impressed. Brag in the comments section below – you deserve to!! 😂 This is the brand I usually use, just purchased from grocery stores in Australia:
How to make Family Meat Pie
Buckle in! This does take time to make because it involves making a slow-cooked stew filling which then needs to be cooled before filling the pie. But it’s straightforward, and an excellent leisurely weekend project. Most of all you’ll know with just one bite that it was worth every second!
1. Make the Meat Pie Filling
2. Thicken Sauce
3. Assembling the Family Meat Pie
We’re on the home stretch here! So close to tasting this magnificent beast! Then we add a little butter into the pot because the residual bacon fat isn’t enough to cook the mushrooms properly. We want the mushrooms to get nice and golden – and we need enough fat to get there! Once the mushrooms are done, remove to a separate bowl because we will be adding them into the stew partway through the slow cook time. Lastly onion, garlic, celery and carrots go in together. We don’t need to make these golden, we just want to cook the onion enough so the flavour transforms from pungent to sweet. The oven temperature is 180°C/350°F (160°C fan) which might sound quite high, but actually, it’s the equivalent of simmering the stew on a very low heat on the stove. I generally prefer doing slow cooked stews in the oven rather than the stove because it’s lower maintenance – it’s entirely hands-off, no need to stir. The purpose of using a Beurre Manié here is explained in the ingredients section earlier. It allows us to thicken the sauce without the problem of broken up meat from excess stirring! The photo below shows what the filling should look like at this stage fresh off the stove. There is more sauce than you think too, which is what you want because some will inevitably get absorbed by the pastry (don’t worry! It stays crisp!). How to cool the pie filling – Cover the pot with a lid to prevent further liquid evaporation (else the sauce will get too thick from water loss). Then leave in the pot or transfer to a container. Let it cool on the counter for a few hours then transfer into the fridge. Never put a hot pot in the fridge! PRO TIP: For best results, leave the filling overnight. As with all stews, the flavour just gets better!
The perfect meat pie filling….
Notice how the pie filling is saucy, and that there’s plenty of it, but it’s not running everywhere and nor is it thick and stodgy (that’s a frequently used and unflattering term used around these parts). It’s a nice, thick gravy that (mostly) stays in the pie. That’s exactly what we’re aiming for!! Follow the directions in the Shortcrust Pastry recipe for how to make shortcrust pastry (if you want to use homemade) and how to blind bake the pie crust (whether using homemade or store bought). The Pie Filling should be at room temperature and not cold before filling the pie, for two reasons. Firstly, fridge-cold filling is stiff and difficult to evenly pack into the pie crust. Secondly, puff pastry sitting atop fridge-cold filling doesn’t cook as evenly. The edges of the pastry will go beyond brown well before the middle cooks. Fill the pie crust with the Meat Pie Filling. If using a 9″ / 23cm pie tin as I do, you should be able to use ALL the pie filling! It will fill it right to the surface with a slight mound. The filling sinks a bit as it settles into the casing when in the oven. It’s easier to trim with scissors after placing rather than cutting out the shape before placing because you really won’t know what size you need due to the filling mounding slightly. PRO TIP: For guaranteed deep golden surface, brush with egg yolk. It’s just a little less practical because you need to use a whisked whole egg for brushing the edges to adhere the puff pastry lid to the base which doesn’t use much egg so you’ll have a lot left over. Then you need another egg, yolk only, to brush the surface. But if you have a good oven, you can just brush with whisked whole egg, as I have done. If your pie filling was a little on the cool side, you will probably find that it takes closer to 60 minutes. Just bake until that top is golden and flaky! Rest 5 minutes – I know, I know, you are busting to crack through that pie lid immediately. But I need you to be patient for just 5 minutes longer! Let it rest just for a wee bit to make the pastry a bit more stable so it’s easier for you to cut and serve slices. And here’s a couple of up-close-and-personal snaps highlighting the finest features of our meaty model:
Make-ahead tips
Overload of meat pie-making this year for various pie recipes has lead to the discovery of some handy make ahead tips!
Bake ahead and store – Let the whole pie cool in the pie dish, then refrigerate. Once cool, you will be able to lift the whole pie out of the pie tin – it’s solid! Wrap and refrigerate 4 days or freezer 3 months. Thaw then bake for 30 minutes to reheat at 180°C/350°F, loosely covered with foil.Assemble and bake at the ready – Assemble the entire pie but do not do the egg wash (it just doesn’t hold up well when done ahead). Then refrigerate 2 days (beyond this, thawed puff pastry suffers) or freezer 3 months. Thaw, egg wash, then bake per recipe.As a general note, thawed then refrigerated or refrozen puff pastry doesn’t puff up quite as well as when it is thawed then baked immediately. But for a meat pie, the difference is marginal enough to not matter.
Comfort food menu suggestion
Make a mega-feast starring this Family Meat Pie with the addition of the following: As a general note, thawed then refrigerated or refrozen puff pastry doesn’t puff up quite as well as when it is thawed then baked immediately. But for a meat pie, the difference is marginal enough to not matter.
A big, beautiful Spring Salad filled with peas, asparagus and snow peas.Garlic bread! Because nobody ever says no to garlic bread…Self Saucing Butterscotch Pudding for dessert. Warm, soft, caramel flavoured cake AND a butterscotch sauce that magically makes itself? It’s got my name written ALL OVER IT!
If you’re about to make this for dinner, I’m so jealous. I want to be you! I want to be there! – Nagi x PS See below recipe card for the complete Meat Pie Recipe Collection.
Watch how to make it
The Meat Pie Recipe Collection
Evidence of my love of all things meat pie.
Life of Dozer
Cute when he photobombs day to day candid photos. Not so cute when he photobombs recipe video shoots. Oh, who am I kidding. I think it’s cute whenever he photobombs ANYTHING! 😂
