I know one favourite recipe which I use over and over again has to be my Grandmothers traditional beef & ale pie. Made with tender local British beef from my local butcher and melt in the mouth pastry cooked with a traditional local ale (I use Everards Tiger Bitter), this has to be one of those all time favourites.

You will need: 500g local lean diced beef cut into chunks, 1 tbsp plain flour, 1 tbsp olive oil, 1 large onion cut into wedges and separated, 1 carrot peeled and sliced, 1 garlic clove finely chopped, 1 tbsp tomato puree, 250ml local strong ale, few sprigs of thyme, 2 bay leaves, 100g chestnut mushrooms roughly chopped. Then for your pastry 300g plain flour, 1/4 tsp salt, 75g lard cubed, 75g butter cubed and milk to glaze.

Coat your beef in flour and season. Fry in the oil for 5 minutes to brown. Then add onion, carrot, garlic and puree and cook for 5 minutes. Now add your strong ale and 150ml hot water and bring to the boil, add the herbs cover and simmer for around 1 1/2 hours. Once cooked strain the liquid into a jug to use as gravy. For your pastry sift flour and salt in to a large bowl. Rub the fats into the flour until it resembles breadcrumbs. Mix in 4 tblsp cold water to make a dough and then wrap in clingfilm and place in the refridgerator to chill for around 30 minutes.

Preheat your oven to 200 c/400 f/ gas 6. Now lightly butter a 1.2 litre pie dish. Bring out your pastry and roll out a 2/3 of your pastry on a floured surface and use this to line your pie dish. Mix the chopped mushrooms into the meat mixture you have and fill your lined pie dish. Spoon over about 4 to 5 tbsp of the gravy you saved in the jug. Roll out the rest of the pastry. Dampen the edge of the pastry lining your pie and place the piece you have just rolled over the top to seal your pie and trim off the edge pressing down to seal. Make a slit in the middle of your pies pastry top and you can decorate the top of your pie with pastry leaves etc before glazing with the milk using a pastry brush. Then bake your pie in the oven for 50 to 60 minutes until the pastry browns. Heat your gravy in a saucepan, thicken using cornflour if needed and serve with your pie along with creamy mashed potato, or new potatoes and a selection of vegetables.

For a hotter version you can always add in 1-2 tsp of english mustard to the meat mix. For even more convenience you can also make the meat filling in advance and freeze this, by freezing the meat and gravy separately, just defrost thoroughly before use.

The recipe above will serve 4 but if you want to make a bigger pie you can double the quantities for the meat mixture and use 500g flour with 120g of butter and lard & 6 tblsp water for your pastry and a bigger pie dish! But don’t expect any left overs as there will not be any!

Whats your favourite pie filling, let me know.