Gluten free steak pie

Mmmmm steak pie. This was a bit of an epic adventure, punctuated by a 90 minute power cut!

One of the things I got in my Knorr Stockpot hamper was Helen’s gluten free pastry mix. It’s one I’d not tried before, and I was keen to test it out. We had some lovely vegetables too, and the intriguing Knorr Rich Beef Stock Pots (different to the Beef Stock Pots) so I decided it would be nice to make a steak pie and serve it with vegetables.

We used the recipe from Knorr, only making some small adaptations to make it gluten free and make substitutions where we didn’t have the right ingredients in!

Ingredients for gluten free steak pie (though we didn’t actually use the Kallo gravy to serve – it wasn’t needed!)

The first stage was to prepare the steak and pop it in the oven for a few hours. We heated the oil and added the steak to brown, and then added the onions. We didn’t have any tomato puree, rosemary or bay leaf, so we added a tablespoon or so of Heinz Squeeze & Stir Tomato in (we use this quite a lot – it’s a great ingredient!). Then we added the flour (25g of gluten free plain flour), and the stock. The Rich Beef Stock Pot is amazing! It was the first time we’d used it and we were surprised at how different it was to the other Stock Pots. It’s less jelly like and much thicker – not opaque at all. It smelt delicious and I’m sure would make a lovely rich gravy…

Knorr Rich Beef Stock Pot

Once that was stirred in with the steak, we popped it in a pot and into the oven for about 3 hours. Except we had a power cut. So it was in the oven for about 5 hours (2 hours or so of which were colder than hoped!).

Once the steak was in the oven, I got to work with the pastry mix. It was very specific about being exact with the measurements, and measuring out exactly 60ml of water is not easy, but I did it. I’m not generally very adventurous with recipes so tend to follow them as closely as possible anyway so I liked the fact that as long as I stuck to the instructions it should work out OK. I have to confess I did doubt it though…

60 exactly! Thank goodness for digital scales

The pastry mix before adding the water

The pastry mix after adding the water

The final picture is how it was before I let it rest. I wasn’t convinced it was going to work. However, I was pleasantly surprised once I came back to it and rolled it out. Sadly I don’t have many photos of that stage as I did it by candlelight during the power cut. I was very impressed with both the pastry and my skills in managing to do it in the dark! By the time the power came back on we had a pastry base ready to blind bake, and once that was done it was time to check on the beef and add it into the pastry, before topping with a crust and egg wash.

Pastry case by candlelight (it was fairly easy to work with)

Mmmm steak in rich gravy

Steak in gravy added to the pie crust

Pie crust with egg wash

Of course I couldn’t resist playing with the leftover pastry to make some fun shapes – I used to do this as a child when we did any baking and the habit has stuck!

Extra pastry shapes to bake

This helped the waiting time whilst the pie was baking too (by which point it was about 9pm despite starting the pie mid-afternoon!). About half an hour later though, we had a pie! Look at that!

Nice golden brown pie crust

No leakage!

Admittedly this round dish wasn’t the easiest to get the pie out of, but the pastry held together well which helped. I served my pie with some baby new potatoes, carrots and curly kale (it was my first time trying curly kale but sadly I wasn’t a fan). The baby new potatoes and carrots both went really well with the rich gravy though, and the pie crust added a lovely crunch to the meal. Because the meat had been cooked for so long, it was lovely and tender, and the sauce was so rich, really delicious. There was plenty of it too!

Gluten free steak pie with vegetables

Rich gravy thanks to the Rich Beef Stock Pot

Considering the problems we had with the power cut and the fact we’ve never made a steak pie before, I was really impressed. I’d definitely recommend Helen’s gluten free pastry mix for a quick and easy way to make gluten free shortcrust pastry (you can apparently use it for sweet dishes too by adding sugar), and if you’re making any sort of beef dish I’d highly recommend the Knorr Rich Beef Stock Pot (we recently used it in a Cottage Pie and that was yummy too!).