Pie 'n' mash east end special.

I found my self in London the other month and I was in one of the restaurant capitals of the world. Every kind of food will be available to me from all around the world cooked and plated for me to enjoy if I wished to.  But with its coffee bars restaurants and food halls is that the food of the city. I fear not, so here is my Pie 'n' mash recipe.

For your filling,

1 onion

2 cloves garlic

450g/1lb minced beef

1 tsp English mustard

1 tbsp tomato purée

vegetable oil

150ml/5fl oz brown ale

100ml/3½fl oz beef stock

2 tbsp plain flour

A splash of Worcestershire sauce

Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

Special pie pastry

10oz /274g  self raising flour

1½ / 39g butter

1½ / 39g lard

1½ / 39g suet

5tdsp of cold water

Pinch of salt.

For the mash

4 large potatoes

100ml/3½fl oz hot milk

Knob of butter

Ground white pepper to taste

For the parsley liquor

50g/2oz butter

50g/2oz flour

500ml/18fl oz chicken stock

Lots of  parsley chopped

Slat and pepper to taste

Jellied eels to have on the side.

To start with, get a big frying pan out and on the stovetop heat up to a medium hot heat. Add the oil and the onions finely diced and cook until soft. While this is cooking get your minced beef, add the flour to it, and mix it all together so that the beef gets a good covering of the flour. Do not press it together you want it free flowing. Then get you beef in the pan and brown the meat so it is all cooked.

Once your beef is cooked add every thing else to the pan and cook until it reduces slightly and you have a good pie fill. You do not want it to thick, as it will thicken as you cook it in the pie. Then take this of the heat and set it to one side to cool a little.

Now make your pasty, this is a unusual pastry as it is a bit like a short crust but also like a suet pastry, and using the self raising flour makes it very light as well. Sift the flour in to the bowl, cut your butter and lard up and work that in to the flour. When you have a breadcrumb constancy add the suet, a pinch of salt and lightly work that in. add the water and bring it in to a bough but do not over work it.

Then roll and line your pie tins this recipe makes enough for about four. For the end effect, you need an individual pie and not a slice.  Add your fill and roll out and cut a top for the pie, wet the edges and get a good seal around the edge, you do not want it to boil out . Finally glaze your pies with a little milk and pop them in a preheat oven, set at 180C/350F, to bake for 30 minutes until golden brown.  

Now for you parsley liquor, melt your butter in a saucepan and add the flour and make a roux. Slowly add your stock a little at a time letting it work in to the roux, keep doing this until you have a thick sauce. Season with salt and pepper and then add lots of chopped parsley. 

As for your mash, peel and chop your potatoes boil and simmer until fully cooked, add the milk and butter season and mash until light and fluffy.

As for the jellied eels I have no recipe for them you just have to go and by some, but only if you want to have them.

I do not know but I am lead to believe that you should serve this with the mash on one side the pie on the other and the parsley liquored as a gravy, not over the pie or the mash but a pool around them . Jellied ells in the parley liquor.

Now this is the food of the city and you can see that if you was a working man of old London town this would fill you up after a working day. A real taste of London on a plate.