Beef and mushroom pot pie...food for the gods

Well, Friday night's beef and mushroom pie, which we made on Sunday night, was a real winner!

This supper reminds me of those dishes one finds in remote places on travels that send the taste buds on a whole new exciting experience. On my very first travels overseas I had lambple pie in a centuries old pub somewhere in the Cotswolds in England. Lamb and apple pie! Oh what succulent and delectable warmth on the tongue. Heart warming stuff that makes you feel as if you are at home, even though it tastes nothing like what you normally would get at home. One day I am going to try and make it.

I can imagine having found this beef and mushroom pot pie travelling between Colesburg and Graaff Reinet on a sleety, cold day on the way to the Grahamstown Festival. We would be freezing, yearning for warm sustenance. The Karroo would lay desolate beneath us, clouded in the snowy atmosphere. We would see an isolated hotel as we descend into the plains, neon light flashing Hotel, Hotel, Hotel, weakly through the milky air. Just one road sign with an arrow pointing west off the main road, onto a gravel roadlet, barely wide enough for a John Deere. Yearning for coffee, we would dash from the parking lot, inhabited by only our car and bang desperately on the front door of the hotel, shut against the elements and stuck by frost so that it cannot be opened from the outside. Our cries are heard by the manager who comes to the door and opens it. A tall man with ruddy cheeks and a beaming smile, clad in a thick home spun and home knitted merino wool cabled jersey, khaki shorts, knee high socks, with comb and Grasshoppers. There is a miserable parrot on his shoulders, puffed up against the cold, screeching “Welkom hier by onse plek” over and over again until you want to order it roasted with cranberry sauce.

The delectable smells from the kitchen draw us in like helpless moths to a candle. We find a table as close to the ineffectual fire as possible. Feebly burning against the enormous coldness of the vast yet uninhabited dining room. The moer koffie is delivered in thick porcelain cups with tiny ears and chipped saucers and we ask for lunch. The beef and mushroom pot pies arrive. But surely this is lamb country? Vir seker ja, maar ons boer met wol!

The pie is made by taking 500g of cubed beef and tossing it in flour. The bits are browned and sealed in a smidgeon of olive oil in a pan. A chunkily sliced onion is added, with a heaped teaspoon of crushed garlic. Make up a cup of a mixture of red wine and beef stock to taste. Can be all red wine if you like, whose watching? Add two tablespoons of Worstershire sauce and toss the liquid into the pan. Take a punnet of button mushrooms and wash them. Yes, wash them, the theory of not washing mushrooms is gross. I do not want peat and all sorts of stuff in my supper thank you. Half the big mushrooms and leave the small ones whole and toss them into the pan too. Allow this meaty, mushroomy stew to stew for about forty minutes, or until you are happy with the tenderness of the beef. You can use tenderised steak instead if you like. Once cooked, aliquot servings into ovenproof bowls, slap on a lid of some ready made puff pastry, egg it to make it shiny and gold in the oven, and bake for about twenty minutes at 180 degrees. Food for the gods I tell you.

The one issue I have with the Food Ideas plan is that I don’t think they have given much thought to the seasons. A couple of weeks ago I was meant to use naartjies. Where on earth do you get them now? I used a mineola instead. These exquisite pot pies would be a ten out of ten for a mid winters meal, but we are frying at this time of the year.