Winter warmer recipe : Sweet-Spiced Beef Goulash Pie

Tate & Lyle recently sent me through a selection of their products (a variety of different sugars, black treacle and golden syrup) and invited me to try out one of the recipes from their Taste & Smile website. As I'd recently tried one of their sweet recipes, knocking up a delicious Sticky Toffee Pudding, I decided to have a look at their savoury offerings and found the perfect winter warmer : Sweet-Spiced Goulash Pie. By cleverly using the slow cooker while I was at work, it was simple to finish off at the end of the day with minimal effort and it tasted fab. As I tweaked the recipe a fair bit, do head over to see the original, especially if you're not going to be using a slow cooker.

Sweet-Spiced Beef Goulash Pie

ingredients :

950g (2lbs) trimmed weight shin of beef or braising steak, cut into large cubes

400g (14oz) tin chopped plum tomatoes

1 rounded tbsp sweet smoked paprika

salt & freshly ground black pepper

275g (10oz) small shallots, peeled with the root end left on, or 2 large red onions

2 rounded tbsp Tate & Lyle Dark Soft Brown Sugar

3 tbsp butter

5 large mushrooms

225g (8oz) jar roasted piquillo red peppers, drained & cut into large pieces

a shake of gravy granules

375g (13½oz) all butter puff pastry

a little milk (to brush)

Just before heading off to work at 7am, I threw the stewing beef in the slow cooker with a tin of tomatoes and a sprinkle of salt and smoked paprika.

 I left it on low for eight hours so it was falling-apart-tender when I got home from work.

I used two forks to shred the beef to help it soak up all the lovely sauce.

I fried some mushrooms in a frying pan.

In a separate pan, I gently fried some red onions in a knob of butter, then sprinkled over some Tate & Lyle Dark Soft Brown Sugar.

After 20 minutes on a low heat, they were lovely and caramelised.

Empty the beef and sauce from the slow cooker into the pan with the onions, along with the mushrooms, and add a drained jar of red peppers. (You could use fresh if you prefer, in which case I would fry them along with the mushrooms.)

Give it all a good stir and add a spoonful of gravy granules to thicken up the sauce. I also stirred in a spoonful of sour cream. Taste and adjust the seasoning - I added extra smoked paprika and salt, along with some garlic granules and pepper.

Pour the meat mixture into a deep pie dish and cover with puff pastry. You could make your own pastry but I used a sheet of ready-made puff pastry. Brush with a little milk.

Bake at 180° for about half an hour until the pastry is golden and puffed up and the filling is piping hot.

The caramelised onions give it a lovely sweetness which really brings out the smokiness of the paprika. It's a beautifully rich and meaty pie which is the perfect winter warmer, served with boiled potatoes or mash and veg.

Disclosure : I received a selection of Tate & Lyle products in order to try out one of their recipes.