Texas Beef meets Aussie Pies

Of late I have been inspired by things around me, either restaurants in the area, food trucks who provide amazing goodies to us office dwellers at lunch or grocery stores/farmers markets. I am fortunate to be surrounded by amazing food and ingredients and have great inspiration. Our office has recently started having visits on Mondays by an Austin company called Boomerang Pies, each Monday they bring their little truck around and pull up outside our office and for about $5 you can get one of many tasty concoctions, my current favorite is the Thai Chicken, mmm just thinking about it makes my mouth water. I share this for two reasons, one because I love that Thai Chicken pie and two, because a cool Austin based company is now featured at Whole Foods, yup some of the Southern States Whole Foods will now stock these beauties! **Just to be clear, my endorsement of these tasty pies is wholly my own, no one from Whole Foods or Boomerang knows, has asked for or paid for my ringing endorsement.

For those of you who aren't lucky enough to live in the South ;) you'll just have to make your own pies. Thankfully I recently was selected to participate in a fabulous Foodbuzz Featured Publisher program for the Texas Beef Council and thus had ample beef with which to make a meat pie! This post is one in a series of four that will be focused on some of the fabulous lean cuts available from Texas Beef Producers, I am lucky enough to be smack dab in the heart of the great state of Texas and have ample product available to fill at least four posts with!

So, back to the meat pies. the Aussie Meat Pie became known as the 'national dish' of Australia back in 2003 when then Premier Bob Carr declared it as such. The meat pie a hand-sized treat containing largely diced or minced meat and gravy, sometimes with onion, mushrooms, or cheese. Imagine a version of a Hot Pocket that isn't fully of random processed foods but instead holds goodness and warmth and gravy! How can you make one of these you ask? Well, let me share my version of a Guinness pie...


Aussie Meat Pies
3 lbs Beef Chuck Roast, diced into 1/2 inch cubes
1/2 Cup Flour
3 Tbsp Vegetable Oil
2 Cloves Garlic, Minced
1/2 Large Onion, Diced
2 Tbsp Black Pepper
1 Tbsp Ground Coriander
1/4 Cup Worcestershire Sauce
1/4 Cup Soy Sauce
1 14oz Bottle Guinness, or other stout beer
4 Sheets Frozen Puff Pastry, thawed and pliable
1 Egg, beaten


1. Preheat oven to 400 F.
2. Dredge beef in flour and brown. Add garlic and onion and saute for 4 minutes. Add spices, stir well.
3. Add Worcestershire sauce and soy sauce, cook until liquid is nearly gone.
4. Add beer, cook until meat is coated in a thick gravy.
5. Slice pastry into four pieces, spoon mixture into pastry and fold over to form a turn-over type shape. Place on parchment or silicone baking mat on baking sheet.
6. Brush with egg wash, sprinkle additional black pepper over the tops. Bake approximately 8 minutes or until golden brown.

Serve hot!



These were gone in a flash and got my wheels spinning on other great combos to fill the pastry with!