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Feeds 4-8 depending how hungry you are

Ingredients

  • 2 tins of corned beef (roughly 300g each) chopped into small chunks
  • 6 medium to large potatoes for mashing
  • 3 medium sized carrots chopped finely
  • 4 shallots chopped
  • Around 15g fresh thyme, leaves only leave out the stalks. I used roughly half a 30g pack from Tesco for referrence I didn’t weigh it out.
  • Couple of splashes of Worcestershire Sauce
  • Couple of splashes of Chiptole Tobasco or I used Cholula brand
  • 2 cloves of garlic chopped finely
  • Salt and ground black pepper
  • 1 packet of ready made shortcrust pastry
  • 1 egg beaten
  • butter

corned beef pie ingredients
Instructions

Peel and cut the potatoes into medium chunks and boil in salted water until softened. I left cool completely for a few hours before preparing the rest.I then used a sharp knife and chopped at them wildly whilst in the pan to make it easier to mash later on.

Add the carrots in a frying pan and cook on a medium heat in a little oil for around 10 minutes. The finer the better as they take bloody ages to cook in a pan otherwise.

Put the oven on to warm at around 180C.

Add the chopped shallots, a little more oil if the pan is dry and continue cooking until they start to soften, brown and the carrots cook a little longer. Add the chopped garlic, stir and continue to cook for another two minutes then add a few splashes of Worcestershire Sauce and stir in again.

Add the chopped corned beef to the pan and mix with the rest of the ingredients and mashing it in with your wooden spoon. Cook for a couple of minutes whilst continuing to mix so that the corned beef softens and breaks down into a mush. Add a generous helping of ground pepper, a bit of salt and a few splashes of the chiptole sauce.

Add the thyme leaves to the pan and mix to combine. Now drop in the chopped cooked potatoes and give a quick stir to mix it with a bit of the other ingredients then use a potato masher to start mashing the potato with the rest of the other ingredients.Try to combine as much as you can but the further cooking will break down the potato further so don’t worry too much.

I added about 50g of butter cut into chunks and mixed into the mash for an extra bit of creaminess.I also added a bit of oil to grease the pie dish so that the mixture doesn’t stick too much.

corned beef pie filling

I couldn’t be bothered to blind bake the bottom of the pastry and just opted for a top piece so then continued to spoon the mixture into the pie dish, making sure to squish it down so there are no empty pockets on the side of the dish.

Smooth out on top so it’s level then drop the piece of rolled shortcrust pastry on top to cover the dish. It might need a little bit of gentle stretching to cover the edges but be carefull not to tear the pastry.

Take a knife and cut around the outside of the pie dish so that there is none overlapping. Then take a fork and press down on the edges of the pasty to crimp and make sure the pastry hugs the pie dish so there’s no gaps.

Once you’ve done a full circle, cut a little crosshair with the knife in the middle to let some steam escape the pie so it doesn’t bubble up.

No to brush the pastry with the beaten egg to give it a lovely golden sheen when it’s cooking trying not to miss any bits of the uncooked pastry. If there’s any mixture left over you can make some little pasties like my nan sometimes does or if you have a little pie dish you can spoon the mixture and top with any leftover pastry .

Add to the oven and cook for around 25 minutes depending on the oven but check from 20 minutes to make sure it hasn’t burned. Remove from the oven and leave to cool for 10 minutes as it will be scolding hot.

Cut into desired wedge size and pair with whatever you fancy from my nan’s favourite peas and gravy or you could go with beans or like I used to have break time in school sandwiched between a buttered roll with a good helping of tomato sauce on top.

This could feed 8 if you had something on the side although I had about an 1/8th of a piece then went back for another helping as I’d just done a bit fo a beasting at the Cardiff Blues bootcamp and was absolutely starving with no bread to go with it 🙁