feast

I don’t know if my mom had something like this in mind when she recently gave me this great rectangular ceramic baking dish:

That, my friends, is Jamie Oliver’s Beef, Guinness, and Cheddar Pie. The other day, I passed his cooking program on TV and saw him making this at which point I nearly dropped the remote as I started to salivate. (That’s probably not a pretty mental picture, but at least I’m honest!)

This isn’t a difficult recipe, not least because the crust is made from puff pastry straight from the grocery store, but it is time consuming. The whole process takes about 3.5 hours, from initial prep to final cooling. It is, however, entirely worth it and entirely enjoyable. What was that you said? You wanted to see that crust close up? Hahaha, I’m happy to oblige:

I made very few modifications to the recipe, which does have metric measurements that take a little bit of converting. The recipe is also very well written and descriptive of the entire process, so that helps to limit changes, too. One of the biggest changes I made was to remove the second 100g of cheddar that he called for; I figured that melting 100g of cheddar into the filling itself was sufficient, I didn’t need to layer another 100g on top of the filling. I mean, this is artery-clogging enough. I also made another change: the recipe calls for 14 oz of Guinness, which is more than 1 bottle, but less than 2 bottles. So I poured in the 2 bottles and omitted the water that he calls for. I think this made a huge difference in the concentration of flavor in the filling.

This easily provides 6 generous adult portions. And with a side of sweet peas, it’s robust, hearty dinner heaven. Go forth and make it, but be sure to schedule in a loooong walk afterward!