Little and Friday's Steak and Potato-top Pies

I found this recipe in the Treats From Little and Friday cookbook (by Kim Evans).
I love Steak and cheese pies, but the ones you get from the supermarket or bakeries are sometimes a bit disappointing and often lacking in flavour (not that it stops me eating them).
As soon as I saw the recipe, I knew I wanted to make it, the picture in the book looked so tempting!
The resulting pies were delicious, and this has become one of my all time favourite recipes.
The first time I made the pies, I made them in the little ceramic ramekins like the recipe said, however, the pastry on the bottom was quite soggy. I'm not sure what went wrong, but the second time I made them, I just used a large metal pie dish, in the hopes that the bottom would cook better.
This recipe makes heaps of the steak filling, I got two large pies and one small pie out of it, with a bowl full still left over after. The filling is so good that I had to stop myself eating it all before it went into the pie!

FILLING:

• Dash of olive oil
• 1kg beef steak, cut into 20cm pieces
• 4 onions roughly chopped
• 2 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
• 3tbsps fresh Thyme
• 1 1/2 cups of red wine
• 2 1/2 cups of beef stock
• Salt and freshly ground pepper
• 2tbsps of cornflour (you will probably need heaps more than this)
• 3tbsps of water

TOPPING: (If you don't want to follow this recipe, just make mashed potatoes like you usually do)

• 4 large Agria potatoes, quartered
• 3 tbsps. cream
• knob of unsalted butter
• Salt and freshly ground pepper
• Grated cheese

BASE:

• Puff Pastry

1.  Preheat oven to 180C or 356F. Grease six 9cm pie tins, (or any pie tin you want to be honest).
2. To prepare filling, heat oil in a large frying pan and sauté steak, small portions at a time to prevent stewing. Transfer to a large casserole dish.

   

   Dice steak

   
   
3. Sauté onion and garlic until golden. Add to casserole dish with bacon, thyme, red wine and stock. Season with salt and pepper, cover and cook in oven for 1 hour.

   

   Saute onion and garlic

   
   

   

   Ready for the oven

   
   
4. Mix cornflour and water to form a paste. Stir through meat mixture until well combined.
   You will probably need to use more cornflour paste than indicated. The mixture needs to be thick enough to put in a pie.

   

   Thicken steak mixture (thanks Mum)

5. Return to oven for 30 minutes, until meat is tender and mixture is thickened. Leave to cool before filling pies, or pastry will become soggy.
6. To prepare topping, boil potatoes in salted water.
   Drain and add cream, butter and salt and pepper. Mash and set aside to cool.

   

   Mashed potato

7. On a floured surface, roll pastry out to 4mm thick. Cut into 15cm squares (or whatever size fits your pie tin.) Ease into prepared tins, do not trim edges. Allow pastry to rest in fridge for 2 minutes.
8. Preheat oven to 200C or 392F. Place a tray in the oven to heat.
9. Fill lined tins with steak mixture. Cover with potato and press grated cheese on top.
10. Fold overhanging pastry over onto potato to form a seal.
11. Place pies in tray on oven and cook for 25 minutes or until golden brown.

ENJOY