Inspired by the Taste magazine’s “Cook the Cover” feature in June for a Beef and Cheddar pie, I made another with tender beef and truffle cream – I have a fond memory of a simple but elegant fettuccine with truffles at Ortolana and wanted to replicate that flavour.

A few weeks ago at Sabato I came across a “Creama Tartufata” sauce – a blend of champignon mushrooms and black truffles. Perfect match I think for this pie.

The ingredients were enough for me to make a 28cm round pie and a smaller 24cm rectangular pie.

The recipe is modified slightly to suit (whatever I had in the pantry at the time), stock was Simon Gault’s and pastry was pre-made frozen sheets. I find that the sheets fit rectangular dishes best and way easier to defrost than the blocks.

Ingredients:

• 1kg beef, cross-cut blade*, cut into 2cm strips
• 2 onions, sliced
• 6 cloves of garlic, peeled
• 4 tbsp Crema Tartufata
• 250ml  dry white wine
• 500ml beef stock (Simon Gault’s)
• 3 tbsp cornflour + 1/4 cup water
• 4 sheets frozen flaky pastry sheets

Instructions:

1. Season beef with salt and pepper.
2. Heat oil in the pan to brown the beef in several batches.
3. Brown onion until it softens.
4. Add wine to deglaze the pan.
5. Return all the beef to the pan and bring to the boil. Cover and bake in the preheated oven for 2 hours (or you can use a pressure cooker like I did and it’s all done in 45 minutes!)
6. When cooked, remove beef and flake meat off with a fork.
7. Thicken the stock with cornflour liquid.
8. Mix the Crema Tartufata in with the thickened stock.
9. Line your pie dishes with pastry. Prick with a fork. Fill to three-quarters full. Top with another layer of pastry. Pinch edges with fork to seal.
10. Brush the tops with egg wash.
11. Fanbake in the hot oven (190C) until golden and crisp, approximately 20-30 minutes.

*Note: I prefer to cook with cross-cut blade when making stews, casseroles and curries as the texture of the meat helps create this irresistible gelatinous goo that binds everything together. Yum!!

(this is a photo of the beef and cheddar pie I made for the “Cook the cover” competition. Didn’t win but my consolation was that my photo was featured in the magazine’s email out to subscribers, so in a way it is a dream come true, to have my photo ‘published’ in my favourite magazine!)

J said “the flavour bursts into my mouth and it is so delicious!” She even had a third helping!