English steak and kidney pie

• By Mark Camilleri

For 6 people, you will need:

500g of short-crust pastry, 75ml of Guinness, a kilo of stewing-beef (in chunks), 500g of beef kidneys (in chunks), two onions (roughly chopped), 50g of flour, two teaspoonfuls of fresh thyme, salt and pepper, 75ml of beef stock.

Place the beef and kidney chunks in a bowl, stirring in salt and pepper, the thyme, onions and flour. Butter a pie-dish. Roll out the pastry and line the dish leaving a little hanging over the edge, taking care that there is enough to make a lid too. Put in the filling, and pour on the stock and Guinness. Put on a pastry lid and seal the edges, pressing them closed. Cover the pie with a piece of buttered baking-paper, then with a piece of buttered foil. Preheat the oven to gas mark 3/160C and bake the pie for 35 minutes. Now turn the heat up to gas mark 5/180C and bake it for another 35 minutes. Ten minutes before the end of cooking-time, take the pie out of the oven and remove the foil and baking-paper, returning it to the oven to give the lid a golden glow. Serve this pie warm, with potatoes and vegetables. The traditional English accompaniments are mashed potatoes and gravy.