This Irish beef and Guinness pie recipe with potato mash will make you delicious little meat pies made in ramekins. This recipe is intended to use up any leftover Irish stew and mashed potato or colcannon leftovers if you’ve been making our Irish recipes this week but don’t wait until the next Saint Patrick’s Day to make these pies. They are so delish!
I’d planned on finishing our series on our best traditional Irish recipes yesterday on Saint Patrick’s Day – we used the Irish holiday as an excuse to cook Irish food this week – however, we had some leftover Irish beef stew made with Guinness, along with some leftover mashed potatoes, so we made these cute pies. I’ll tell you all about them in a moment.
If you’re dropping by for the first time in a while, Terence kicked off our Irish food week with a scrummy breakfast colcannon with crispy bacon and fried eggs for Weekend Eggs, which I guarantee will fix any hangover. And if you enjoy that colcannon…
Try Terence’s crispy salmon fillet with Irish colcannon with prawns. Not a new recipe, it’s based on a dish by Irish chef Liam Tomlin, who helmed one of our favourite Sydney restaurants, Banc, many years ago, and Terence has been making Liam’s colcannon ever since we first tried it.
I also shared my best traditional Irish stew recipe, which makes an amazingly rich and deeply flavoured Irish stew, Ireland’s national dish. That Irish stew is made with beef, which was ‘winter food’ in Ireland well before the Irish began eating lamb, and a medium- to full-bodied red, such as Shiraz. This is a stew that calls for extreme slow-cooking. I find four hours is best. But it will still taste divine after an hour or two.
Next up, we shared our classic cottage pie recipe (our shepherd’s pie recipe will have to wait until next year, as we can’t source lamb here), and another stew recipe for a classic Irish beef and Guinness stew with cheese dumplings, which cooks longer due to the dumplings, and calls for you to break apart the beef with a spoon and fork, resulting in a pulled beef of sorts that’s so tender you can break it with a spoon.
Savoury cheddar cheese dumplings cooked with the stew are the best traditional Irish pairing, however, if the dumplings are too heavy for you, you can easily serve the stew with green veggies to lighten the dish.
Now, before I tell you all about this Irish beef and Guinness pie recipe with potato mash for mini meat pies made in ramekins, I have a favour to ask. Grantourismo is reader-funded. If you’ve enjoyed our recipes or other content on the site, please consider supporting Grantourismo. You could buy us a coffee and we’ll use that donation to buy cooking ingredients for recipe testing or contribute to our epic original Cambodian cuisine history and cookbook on Patreon.
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You could also shop our Grantourismo store on Society6 for gifts for foodies, including fun reusable cloth face masks designed with my images. Now let’s tell you more about this Irish beef and Guinness pie recipe with potato mash for mini meat pies made in ramekins.
Irish Beef and Guinness Pie Recipe with Mashed Potato for Mini Pies in Ramekins
Our Irish beef and Guinness pie recipe with mashed potatoes will make you four addictive mini meat pies made in ramekins. This recipe was created to use up leftover Irish stew and mashed potato leftovers – or leftover colcannon if you prefer – and is a fantastic recipe to plan on making when you next cook Irish food. Just don’t wait until next Saint Patrick’s Day!
I’d planned on finishing our series on traditional Irish recipes yesterday on Saint Patrick’s Day – we used the Irish holiday as an excuse to cook Irish food this week – however, we had some leftover Irish beef stew made with Guinness, along with some leftover mashed potatoes, so we made these.
So while Terence was setting up the camera to shoot the Irish Guinness stew, I made these lovely little pies with the leftovers, and Terence stepped in to brush on the egg wash, pierce the holes in the pie lids, slide the ramekins into the oven, and set the timer, while I went and styled the Guinness beef stew set-up.
For such a spur-of-the-moment idea, we were delighted with the results, and will definitely be making these again, along with experimenting with more mini pies made from leftovers in ramekins. These little pies are so much faster to make than a large pie and the size is perfect for lunch or a light dinner if you make a salad or veggies to serve on the side.
It’s Friday and it’s been a big week, so no long story on the history of pies today! I just have a few tips to making this Irish beef and Guinness pie recipe with potato mash for these mini meat pies made in ramekins.
Tips for Making this Irish Beef and Guinness Pie Recipe with Mashed Potato
Just a few quick tips to making this Irish beef and Guinness pie recipe with potato mash for mini meat pies made in ramekins.
We used a store-bought puff pastry block that was already divided into 10 portions of layered sheets, which worked out perfectly for four mini ramekin pies.
One sheet was used to create the pie base and sides, another sheet was used for the pie lid and the off-cuts of the round pie lids was used to fill gaps if the first pieces didn’t quite reach the rims of the ramekins.
We had leftover Irish stew and mashed potatoes, hence this recipe, however, you could use this Irish colcannon instead of mash. That would also work and would be very delicious. I also thought about a layer of cheddar cheese on top of the mash… mmmm…
Don’t forget to pierce a small hole in the pie lid and brush on the egg wash. Set the timer for 30 minutes, though we found that while our little pies were ready at 30 minutes, they needed a few more minutes to brown nicely on top.
Irish Beef and Guinness Pie Recipe
Equipment
Ingredients
- 1 tbsp butter - to grease the ramekins
- 500 g puff pastry block - 10 portions of sheets
- 400 g beef stew
- 200 g potato mash or colcannon
- 1 egg - gently whisked to create a wash for the pie tops
Instructions
- Defrost the puff pastry block as per the instructions on the packet.
- Preheat the oven to 200°C/400°F.
- Use the butter to thoroughly grease the insides of the ramekins.
- Divide the puff pastry block into 10 portions of layered sheets and lightly cover the puff pastry block with a damp cotton kitchen tea towel so the puff pastry doesn’t dry out.
- Lay one portion of puff pastry sheets on the bottom of a ramekin and use your fingers to firmly press the dough into the base and sides, ensuring the dough hangs a little over the edge of the ramekin. If some parts don’t quite reach the top, don’t worry about that yet, as we’ll fix that in a moment. Repeat with all ramekins.
- Use a round pastry cutter or metal egg ring that is a little larger than the top of the ramekins by about half a centimetre and cut four rounds out of four pastry sheets.
- Firstly, use the pastry off-cuts to fill any gaps in the pie casings by making sure the pastry completely covers the interior of the ramekins and ramekin tops. Use a small fork to prick light holes in the pastry bases.
- Use a tablespoon to transfer 2 generous scoops (around 100 g) of stew into each ramekin, pressing the stew down to fill half the pie base, then transfer a scoop (around 50 g) of mashed potato or colcannon to completely fill the pie base to the very top of each ramekin.
- Now place the puff pastry rounds on top of each ramekin, and then, working with one at a time, use your thumb and fore finger to press the top puff pastry sheet to the rim of the interior pastry sheet to seal them tightly together as you use your finger nail to create a pattern along the edge at the same time. Repeat with each pie lid.
- Use the pointy end of a sharp knife to pierce a small hole into the centre of the pastry lid to allow steam to escape, then brush each pie lid with the egg wash.
- Evenly place the ramekins onto an oven tray then slide the pies into the oven to bake for 30 minutes or so until the pastry has risen and is crisp and has a lovely golden-brown colour.
- Serve immediately while piping hot.
Nutrition
Please do let us know in the comments below if you make our Irish beef and Guinness pie recipe with potato mash for mini meat pies made in ramekins, as we’d love to know how they turn out for you.
