Bachelor Cooking: Steak and Cheese Pie Muffins

You know you want to try this. You just need all the ingredients. And the time. It takes about two hours to make, but boy is it delicious. This is apparently a major comfort food delicacy in New Zealand, and the recipe I have will incorporate an American twist to the meal.

First off … here’s what the final product will look like.

Does that look appetizing or what?

Okay. Here’s the ingredients.

You will need –

• One pound ground beef
• Olive oil
• One red onion, diced
• One garlic clove, chopped
• Kosher salt (every meal needs Kosher salt)
• Black pepper
• Three tablespoons all-purpose flour
• 1 1/3 cups beef stock
• Worcestershire sauce
• Pepperidge Farm puff pastry strips
• Cheddar cheese squares
• Egg

Start off. Dice up the onion. Put it in a bowl. Chop up the garlic. Put it in another bowl.

Large skillet on the stove. Coat skillet bottom with olive oil. Turn on flame.

Once oil is hot, add onions. Saute for two minutes. Pour in garlic. Saute for another minute. Add ground beef. Mash up the ground beef and cook for about six minutes. Do not drain. You need all the juice here.

Sprinkle Kosher salt on the ground beef. Shake some black pepper on the ground beef. Add three tablespoons of flower over the ground beef. Mix and stir. Pour in the beef stock. Add in a few squirts of Worcestershire sauce. Bring to boil. Then lid it and take the flame down to simmer for about eight minutes, which will allow the meat and other ingredients to create a nice gravy.

Okay. After eight minutes, turn off the flame and open the lid. Damn that smells good. Pour the entire mixture into a plastic bowl. Put shrink wrap or tinfoil over the bowl, and store the bowl in your fridge. Give it about 2 hours to chill.

Meanwhile, it’s time to prepare the muffin trays. Spray the bottom of the muffin trays with non-stick spray. Take the puff pastry out of the fridge, let it thaw at room temperature for about 30 minutes. Pepperidge Farm has two rolls of puff pastry per package, so you might need trial and error for the number of cuts you’ll make for the muffin trays – you want twelve muffin bases and twelve tops.

Put each puff pastry muffin base in the muffin tray. Do not be afraid to press down into the muffin tray, as long as you did use some non-stick spray on the tray. If you didn’t, go back and read the damn directions to this recipe again.

The meat mixture should be nice and chilly. Take it out of the fridge. Scoop mounds of meat mixture into the muffin bases. Add cubes of cheese into each muffin tray.

Beat the egg in a bowl. Using a brush, paint the top of the muffin bases, then add the muffin tops. Use the remaining egg wash over the muffin tops.

Put the muffin trays in the freezer for 15 minutes. Preheat your oven to 425.

Put the muffin trays in the oven. Cook for 20 minutes, take out, rest for 10.

And dig in. Super-powerful flavors. These things rock.

And just so you know, if you want to save these for another day – leftovers or something to take to work, you can microwave the little pies for 2-3 minutes on a microwave safe plate. A delicious snack that can last for days. And boy oh boy, what a kick it has!

NOTE: This recipe was inspired by a post on the Food52 website, which is linked here. Their version looks so much better than mine … but then again, I’m a bachelor, so I make it the way I make it. 😀