Cape Town - If an Englishman’s home is his castle, an Englishman’s pint of beer is the yardstick by which he will measure your character, and woe betide should your palate be found wanting. And it’s impossible to second-guess how this will pan out, because no one Englishman’s opinion on any or every pint of lager, bitter or ale will coincide with that of any other.
At least, if you do drink beer of one kind or another, you’ll be better off than the disdainful frown and roll of the eyes you’ll get if you’re offered a drink in a pub and your reply is, “Yes please, I’ll have a glass of sauvignon blanc.” This is worse than admitting to rogering sheep or complaining that the tradition of Page 3 girls is demeaning to women.
This all was made absolutely clear to me the first time I visited my cousins in Yorkshire. At the end of the week, as I was boarding the coach to London, my burly cousin Geoff, who would look just the part dressed in grim top hat and tails and driving a Victorian hearse, grimaced at me and muttered, “You won’t like t’beer in London”. I instantly knew it wasn’t an observation. It was an order.
But in truth, the beer in London or in Yorkshire, whether bitter, lager or ale, has a flavour that’s instantly identifiable, and just one sip of an ale I bought the other day in Cape Town whisked me off and into any number of pubs the length and breadth of Britain.
This was a local craft beer called Devil’s Peak, and having spotted it, I decided to buy it – and quickly, before they could change the name. I decided on the spot to cook a dish based on it, in honour of that jagged mountain whose name has got some of our Christian brethren’s silky-white knickers in a twist. I would make a pie that stood firm and proud, as unbendable as the pope and as inflexible as a Bible-thumper who knows that he is right and everybody else is wrong, and will continue to be wrong, until he has the common sense to see the light.
My Devil’s Peak Pie would not be suitable for any kind of communion other than the sort you have around the dinner table with your mates. This would be a rather sinful pie, and not one you’d be likely to see in church next Sunday. This pie would be more at home in a pub full of drunken seamen (sea men, Daisy), and would contain sufficient alcoholic beverage of the malted kind to have you feel that you have, indeed, imbibed a pint of the good stuff, washed down with a second. It would be silly to drink a beef and ale pie with a glass of wine.
This would not be the sort of pie to eat before you donned a T-shirt with a suitably pious slogan on it and set off for a nice afternoon of knocking on doors and bothering people who are trying to watch the World Cup, exhorting them instead to cast away such foolish frivolities and put their minds to more earnest endeavours, such as knocking on doors and bothering people who are trying to watch the World Cup.
This would be the sort of pie you would eat before going for a picnic on top of Signal Hill, armed with many of your favourite local craft beers, for a taste-off with your mates, the results of which would ultimately be forgotten at the bottom of a bottle. Or several.
From your perspective atop Signal Hill, you and your mates would be able to admire Devil’s Peak while drinking it, and be glad that you have the sense (if not quite the sobriety) not to try to change things that don’t tie in with your own beliefs, just because you believe you are right and everyone else must fall into line. Rather, you would crack open a few more and, raising a glass, drink a toast to freedom of thought and association, a toast to a democracy well fought for and won, and a country in which we can all live together, Gods and devils and all of us in between, and not presume to hold sway.
All while nourished by a pie that was made with love and passion, and with beer, and also (as it happens) with beef stock, garlic, onion and salt. A pie made with only a few ingredients, so that the Devil’s Peak ale would be the hero of the dish, and all the other ingredients would bow down and worship the beer, and know that the beer is the life of that pie, if not the way and the truth.
Devil’s Peak beef and ale pie
2 tbs butter
1 medium onion, chopped thinly
3 cloves garlic, smashed and chopped
500g lean beef, thickly diced
2 x 35g sachets Koo concentrated wet beef stock, diluted with 100ml cold water (add more water as required)
400g Devil’s Peak English Ale and more if required
1 packet ready-made puff pastry, rolled out slightly
1 egg, whisked
Into the pot that made this pie (for it was not made by divine, but by fallible human hand – mine as it happens) went butter and onion and garlic, sliced thinly, for it is right so to do. In turn, from the east, by camel, came the thickly diced lean beef, soon to be anointed with beer – some 400ml of it – and about 70g concentrated beef stock, diluted, these all to simmer for two to three hours while reflecting upon their sins, which are manifold.
It might do well to retreat (to the lounge perhaps) at this point while the meat slowly tenderises, but check now and then so the liquids do not evaporate away like backsliding sinners; if they do, chide them by the addition of more beef stock diluted with cold water, and a little more ale, and bring it back to a gentle simmer. And it shall come to pass that you shall have a lovely brown stew with enough sticky sauce to fill the pies, if not quite enough to multiply and feed to the masses. Towards the end, salt the brew to taste.
It remains only to butter some large muffin pans, roll out some ready-made puff pastry and line the cups, prick the base a few times, fill them with the meaty brew, egg-wash the edges, then pop a round of pastry on top of each, crimping the edges. Brush the tops, cut a small incision in the top of each, and bake in a 200°C oven for about 25 minutes, until nicely browned and crisp.
Verily, I served this with baby onions braised slowly in beef stock and sage. Lo, and it was good.
Weekend Argus