Sussex pie

Today, for what may be the first time since the 2012 hiatus, I have bought and cooked a lump of beef.

The occasion was a brainwave, an opportunity to try some more truffing, truffing to follow up that at reference 1. The brainwave being that one could use slices of truffle instead of the mushroom ketchup as the all-important additive to Sussex Pie, described at reference 2, although I think the record there must be incomplete, as I am fairly sure we were still making the things well into 2011. A pie originally described to me in the Wetherspoons at Tooting, and bearing no resemblance to the pie turned up by google, reproduced in the snip left. Although, name apart, I can only applaud the favourable mention of lentils therein.

So off to butcher in Manor Green Road to see what he could do. Too warm presently for him to be stocking shin, which is what I had hoped for, instead getting a near 3lb brick of stewing steak, quite possibly also known as silverside.

Place a sheet of foil in a baking dish, the dish maybe six inches by nine. Coarsely slice an onion into the bottom of it. Make six incisions into the top of the beef, herringbone fashion, and push half a slice of truffle into each. Add three tablespoons of Sainsbury's ruby port. Fold the foil over, sealing it all up, and place in the oven set to 125C at 0645.

There was a smell of something cooking, maybe mushrooms, around the house quite quickly.

Reduced the temperature to 100C at 0830.

Checked progress and drained off most of the fluid at 1130, something under half a pint, by which time the meat had lost perhaps a third of its original length - while maximum width looked unchanged. At least one truffle slice had escaped from its incision but I did not attempt to return it.

Made a gravy with the fluid by working in a little flour - perhaps a level desert spoon - and bringing it back to the boil. Left on gentle heat.

Oven off at 1230, a little under six hours cooking time. Rested it half an hour, then served at 1300 with carrots, crinkly cabbage (a rather feeble specimen, not, I should think, a savoy) and mashed potato. Plus, of course, the gravy.

Oddly, the onion were not really cooked. They were rather like a meaty version of the onions you get under baked fish. Still a bit crisp, not very nice and left to one side. But they had served to get the meat off the bottom of the dish.

The meat was very good, if rather firmer than I had been expecting, perhaps the result of there having been no fat or connective tissue. Cooking time and temperature about right. The truffles had added nicely to the flavour without swamping that of the meat. Gravy very good as an accompaniment, particularly on the mashed potato, left un-buttered and un-milked for the purpose.

Tip for next time: get shin and get a wider roll of foil. This last to make a better job of the parcel.

Reference 1: http://www.psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/2016/01/truffes.html.

Reference 2: http://pumpkinstrokemarrow.blogspot.co.uk/search?q=sussex+pie.

Reference 3: http://www.masterbutchersepsom.co.uk/.