Before I start, apologies for the lack of exact weights and measurements for this Meat and Potato Pie recipe. It’s a hand-me-down recipe and a particular favourite here at Visit Fylde Coast so we thought we’d share it!
It’s a family affair that’s been handed down in our family. My grandma made it, and Chrissie, my own mum. I’d guess it was around long before that too. It makes a really tasty meat and potato pie. Or you can use the meat part as the basis for stew and dumplings and serve it with mash.
Here goes!
Cost: As of updating this recipe, Sainsbury’s tinned stewed steak is £2.30. Plus a couple or three carrots (40p), an onion (30p), old potatoes (40p), gravy browning, flour and margarine. So £4.00-ish to be generous and include some electricity. These ingredients will easily make 8 meals = 50p per serving.
Money saving: We use tinned steak because it’s nice, quick, there’s no faffing and we’re not bothered about a lot of meat. You could save money by buying cheap cuts of stewing steak – just bear in mind that you might want to trim some fat from it, and it will take longer to cook.
Tip: Our recipe uses a pressure cooker. It’s a quick and easy way to make a filling, good value meal, with perfect results every time. Some of the new-fangled multi-cooker Ninja things have a pressure cooker setting, or you can use an old fashioned one with the weight. If you haven’t got one you can do it the slow way, in the oven or a slow cooker. If you like stews, casseroles, soups and things in sauce I’d recommend a pressure cooker. They cut cooking time down a lot.
Meat and Potato Pie Recipe
Serves four in our house 🙂
For the stew:
- One large tin of stewing steak (the kind that’s pre-cooked in gravy)
- Two or three carrots, peeled and sliced
- One large onion, peeled and sliced
- Seasoning (salt and pepper to taste)
- One beef oxo cube
- Gravy browning – as if you’re making half a pint of gravy. I use about 5 teaspoons of instant Bisto granules.
Put everything in the pressure cooker, add enough water to come level with the top of the ingredients.
Put the lid and weight on, put on the ring on full heat to boil. When it’s come up to pressure, cook for 25 minutes at full steam.
When you open the pressure cooker, taste the stew. Does it need any more salt and pepper? Does it need more gravy browning? Then allow to cool.
Potatoes:
- Peel five or six large potatoes and dice into thumb sized squares.
- Boil in a pan until tender. Pieces that size will take about 20 minutes of simmering.
If you adjust the recipe to serve more or fewer people, you should aim to make about the same volume of potatoes as you do stew and gravy.
Shortcrust Pastry:
- Rub 4oz margarine into 8oz of self raising flour, until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs. (Or 2oz margarine, 2oz Trex)
- Add enough cold water to bring it together to make a dough.
- Pull together into a ball, put in a clean plastic bag or wrap in film (or similar) and rest in the fridge for at least half an hour.
Assemble your Meat and Potato Pie:
Tip: If you’ve prepared the components of this meal in advance and it’s all gone really cold, boil the stew up in the pan before you assemble the pie.
- Start with the stew mixture and put a layer in the bottom of a large pyrex dish.
- Add half of the potatoes as the next layer
- Then the rest of the stew, then the rest of the potatoes, to fill the dish.
- Roll out the pastry so that it’s not too thin (about 1/4″) and lay over the top of the pie dish.
- Cut the edges off the pastry. I always squash what’s left into a rough roll and stick it round the edge. It crisps up and you get a nice pastry top.
- Make holes in the top to let the steam out.
- Brush the top with milk to make it go brown.
Bake for about 30 minutes at 220C until golden and enjoy!
Delicious with HP sauce – or do you prefer tomato sauce on yours? Let us know if you’ve tried it, in the comments below.
You might also like:
- Meat and potato pie
- Corned beef hash
- Homemade soup
- Shepherd’s pie
- Soda bread
- Bacon sandwich
- Yorkshire fish cake
Why don’t you check out Trevors Foodservice – it’s the large, back-stage business that’s quietly feeding the Fylde Coast! They’re Blackpool’s number one wholesaler of chilled, frozen and ambient foods. And also sell cleaning materials, catering disposables and equipment.
The family firm was first established in Blackpool in 1962. It sells branded products and their Country Range, specially made for the 12-member buying group which Trevors is part of.
