Here at Young’s we love our pies and of course we couldn’t discuss pies without mentioning London’s greatest pie pub, the award-winning Windmill Mayfair.
1st March 2020
#Food & Drink #Youngs
Three times winner of the British Pie Awards, The Windmill’s accolade doesn’t stop there, with it’s glorious pies securing a place in the Lonely Planet’s Ultimate 500 Food Experiences Around the World.
So what does it take to bake your name in the world of pies?
You’It may surprise you to hear, The Windmill serves up around 1150 tonnes of the nation’s favourite dish each year, drizzled in 55,000 litres of gravy (enough to fill your washing machine 8000 times). Pairing them with over 4600 kilos of potatoes every single week.
We caught up with Head Chef Lukasz who, in honour of British Pie Week is serving up a large slice of hap-pie-ness and sharing his award-winning steak and kidney pie recipe.
Ingredients
3kg of beef skirt, 900g ok kidney, 150g beef dripping, 900g field mushrooms, 450g sliced white onion, 75g plain flour, 75ml Worcester sauce, 50g English mustard, 38ml mushroom ketchup, 3 bay leaves, 2 sprigs of thyme, 1.5 pints of Young’s Bitter, 500ml beef stock -fresh parsley, seasoning
For the top
400g self-raising flour, 200g shredded suet, 1 egg, fresh parsley, seasoning
Method
1) First things first, take the meat out of the fridge at least two hours before cooking and leave in a cool, dry place.
2) Heat the dripping in a saucepan then add the sliced onions. Cook until soft, but not coloured, then add the beef skirt and colour lightly.
3) Add the plain flour then turn up the heat to brown the meat. Add the ox kidney and all other ingredients, except the beer and stock. Combine.
4) Gradually add the stock and beer then simmer gently until the meat is tender. Mix in the fresh parsley then transfer to a pie dish. Set aside.
5) Let’s build! Sieve the self-raising flour into a bowl then add the shredded suet, fresh parsley and seasoning. Gradually add fresh, cold water and combine gently – avoid over- working the pastry. It’s ready when the mixture comes away from the sides of the bowl.
6) Roll the pastry into a ball and cover in cling film. Place in the fridge for 30 minutes.
7) Heat the oven to 200 degrees C.
8) Roll out the pastry until it’s around 1cm thick then cover the pie mixture. Brush with a beaten egg then place in the oven for 45 minutes.
9) Leave to rest for 5 minutes then serve piping hot with creamy mash and plenty of gravy!
Of course if you don’t fancy doing the washing up, you could always pay a visit to the The Windmill Mayfair on May 17th when they open their doors for some well deserved pie perfection.