Mince Meat Pie

I found myself on Thursday night with a bag of defrosted ground beef and no clue what to do with it. I decided to poll my Facebook friends for their advice, and the wonderful Pixie Kat was kind enough to send me a recipe for Shepherd's pie, so between her and this recipe for Shepherd's Pie I found over at taste.com.au, I was set!

So, I began to make my Shepherd's pie, but once I got started I realised I only had two potatoes, clearly not enough to make the necessary mash.  So instead of covering my mince meat filling with mashed potatoes and baking, I covered it with puffy pastry (thanks Jamie Oliver for teaching me another way to be a lazy cook).  It was delicious :)

Mince Meat Pie
~300g ground beef
2 brown onions, chopped
2 large garlic cloves, finely chopped
1 carrot, peeled and chopped
2/3 cup frozen peas
2 cups salt reduced vegetable stock.
1 T salt reduced tomato paste
1 1/2 t Worcestershire sauce
2 T flour
1 t oregano
1/2 t cumin
2 bay leaves
1 sheet puff pastry
olive oil
small bit butter
salt and pepper

1. In a large sauce pan, cook onion, carrot and garlic with a small glug of olive oil for about 5 minutes.
2. Add ground beef, breaking up into small bits, cook for 5 more minutes.
3. Add oregano and flour, and stir until well coated, cooking for an additional 2 minutes.
4. Add stock (I used 1 cube of veg stock to 2 cups boiling water), bay leaf, cumin,Worchestershire sauce, frozen peas, tomato paste, salt and pepper. Stir to combine all ingredients and simmer on low for 20-30 minutes or until reduced.
5. Meanwhile, defrost and then roll out puff pastry.
6. Preheat oven to 190C
7. Remove bay leaves, then pour mince mixture into a pie dish, top with puff pastry.  Trim edges to puff pastry and poke hole in the middle.
8. Brush pastry with a small portion melted butter (or olive oil if preferred).
9. Bake for ~30 minutes on lowest rack of oven, or until pastry is golden.

Best served with ketchup and bbq sauce. Yum.  A vegetarian version could be easily made by swapping out mince meat for chickpeas, potato, or more vegetables (frozen corn is also good).  Makes delicious leftovers (it's really good cold as well as reheated).

To make this a proper Shepherd's Pie instead of a pastry-based pie, simply use 4 or so large potatoes to make mashed potatoes, and spread that over pie in place of pastry and bake for ~20 minutes.  Also good in a deep casserole dish.

PS - I really am a terrible photographer, but I'm blaming it on the fact that we currently have no kitchen lights.