A Truly DELICIOUS Pot Pie! Beef Bourguignonne style!

“Nothing says loving like something from the oven.”
– anonymous

To the idea of pot pies, some folks say things like, “You know, I’ve never liked pot pies, but probably because it was always store bought.”

-or-

“He HATES pot pies. I LOVE them.”

And then, after looking at the ingredients I used, they say this…

“That recipe looks scrumptious.”

-and-

“I’ll have to try this recipe. He might eat it if I make it.”

Understand this: Most all recipes – and that means 99.99% – have their origin in someone’s kitchen – not in a giant factory vat or laboratory test tube.

Also understand this: Recipes are most typically broad guidelines for making a dish. Very few food cooking rules are “hard and fast,” though there are some – but not many.

Know also this: Factory food (any food that’s mass produced is “factory food”), is rarely good, and even more rarely is it good for you. Factory Food is laden with hydrogenated fats (a known cause of cardiovascular, i.e., heart, disease), excessive salt (dietary salt intake is among the most preventable causes of hypertension, i.e., high blood pressure), sugars (nowadays, sugar in factory foods is high fructose corn syrup, i.e., HFCS – and NOT sucrose, i.e. cane sugar), and often lacks flavorings found in custom-made, home-cooked dishes.

In the food industry, it’s about mass production, and rarely about quality. That’s why custom-made home-cooking is so prized nowadays – very few people still know how to do it, and do it properly. And truly, it’s not that difficult to do well. It’s certainly not like brain science, or rocket surgery!🤪

So anyway… I made beef pot pies from some cheap beef spare ribs that I picked up yesterday. Got a big box of ’em, matter of fact, for about $20.

How big is big?

Since I’ve since thrown away the box (seen in the image), I didn’t measure it, and have forgotten its weight. But physically, the box was about 22 inches long, 10 inches wide, and about 4 inches deep… FULL of beef spare ribs. Altogether, there were about 4, or 5 full racks of ribs in it, so it prolly weighed 10 pounds… at least.

And I cooked ‘em all yesterday too. Some in the oven, others in the crockpot. Didn’t take too long, either.

So once they were all cooked, I looked at it all and wondered… exactly what the Hell am I gonna do with all this meat?

I snacked on some of it (of course!), and gave some of the bones to my dog (naturally!).🐶 And, let me assure you… there was absolutely NO SHORTAGE of bones!🤣

So after everything had cooled down after cooking, I proceeded to strip the meat from the bones. And then, I wondered again… exactly what the Hell am I gonna do with all this meat?

And as it turned out, a thought occurred to me: Shepherd’s Pie.

Finding out that Shepherd’s Pie used mashed potatoes as a topping/crust, I decided against that. Mashed potatoes are a starchy food, and as a cultivated habit over some years, I mostly stay away from starches and carbs. Besides, almost all the recipes for Shepherd’s Pie called for some type of ground meat, either beef, or lamb, and I had ribs… which, of course, could be reasonably substituted for ground meat. But I decided against Shepherd’s Pie because of the mashed potatoes.

My next thought was “pot pie.”

And off I went in search of a beef pot pie recipe!

Fortunately, I found one – and an excellent one! Which I modified, of course.

So… What’s in it?

2 onions (red & white), garlic, carrots, celery, field peas, green peas, sweet corn, lima beans, cut green beans, and…

Herbs/Seasonings included thyme, basil, cumin, freshly ground black pepper & salt, Lea & Perrins (brand – it’s the ORIGINAL) Worcestershire sauce, Colgin (brand – it’s the BEST) mesquite smoke flavoring.

The roux (a gravy stock-like mixture of flour & oil/grease from drippings) was made w/a ½ bottle of Zinfandel wine, to which I added water.

Canned biscuits were substituted for the puff pastry on the small ones (one LARGE biscuit split along the layer covered 2 small pies – rolled out, of course) so they’ll rise up when cooked, and on the large one, 2 rolled out biscuits upon the filling with another pie crust atop it. They all got an egg/water wash, and the LARGE pie got some pan drippings in addition.

Only the ‘shrooms, bacon, brandy, bay leaf & star anise was omitted, while the additions were mentioned above. See? It’s now a custom home-made recipe!

Here is the foundational recipe.

Beef Bourguignon Pot Pie

https://www.bonappetit.com/recipe/beef-bourguignonne-pot-pie

Oh… just in the case you’re wondering what “beef Bourguignon” is, it’s an almost-ancient (since the 1800’s) country-style French “dish from the Burgundy region of France, [which] is a stew of meat slowly simmered in hearty red wine along with pearl onions, mushrooms and crisp, cubed bacon.”