Beef Pot Pies For Freezing – Consumer's Union

Recipe by: Kenneth Herron kherron@ms.uky.edu This recipe was
developed by Consumers’ Union for an August 1975 _Consumers’ Reports_
report on frozen individual-serve pot pies. It was the only pie
judged excellent by their taste testers. This recipe makes eight
pies and can be doubled.

Filling Cut stew beef into 1/2-inch cubes. Dice the onion and mince
the garlic.

Heat oil in a pot large enough to contain all ingredients, including
the water. While it heats, coat beef with flour. Brown beef a few
pieces at a time, removing each piece as it browns.

Add onion and garlic to pan drippings and cook, stirring occasionally,
until the onion starts to turn transparent.

Add water and bouillon, then all other ingredients except the
vegetables. Cover and heat to boiling. Reduce heat to a slow simmer
and allow to cook around 1 1/2 hours, stirring occasionally.

While this cooks, chop potatoes and carrots into 1/4-1/2-inch chunks.
At the end of the simmering time, stir in these ingredients and
simmer 20 minutes more. Add peas and simmer 7 minutes more. Check
beef and vegetables for tenderness and simmer longer if necessary.

Crust

Sift flour and salt into a 4-quart bowl. Cut in the shortening with a
pastry cutter or two knives until reduced to pieces about the size of
peas.

Sprinkle water over the flour, one tbsp. at a time, and stir in. Stop
when dough is moist but not sticky.

Gather dough into a ball and divide into 8 pieces.

Assembling the pies:

Obtain 8 aluminum foil tart pans (they specify 5 inches in diameter
and 1 1/4 inches tall; this size doesn’t seem to be available any
more). Divide the filling evenly among the pans; each pan should end
up not quite full (chunks of food can stick up a bit above the top).

For each pie, roll out a piece of dough between two sheets of wax
paper until it just covers the top of the pan. Peel it out of the
waxed paper, place it on top of the pan, and pinch the crust around
the edges so that it adheres. Punch a few holes in the center with a
fork and lightly dust with flour.

Place each pan in a freezer bag and freeze.

Cooking a pie:

Preheat oven to 450 degrees.

Place still-frozen pie(s) on a cookie sheet and bake 40-45 minutes or
until crust is well browned.

Notes:

There’s nothing magic about this crust recipe; if you have another
you’d rather use, go ahead. Personally I’d prefer a bottom crust as
well, but assembling the pies is mind-bogglingly tedious as it is.

For those who have trouble making crusts, the tricky step is cutting
in the shortening. The intent is to break up the shortening into
small pieces, each coated with flour. Once this is done, handling can
smoosh the pieces together but shouldn’t totally disrupt the
shortening/flour structure; it’s this layering that makes the crust
flaky.

I find that the beef tends to absorb the oil during the browning
phase and that I have to use extra oil to complete the step, let
alone have any drippings left over. Maybe your average beef is leaner
these days…