Accidental pastry cleavage, or How to surprise your dinner guests

This entry was meant to carry the mundane appellation of
Beef and Guinness pie
but it would appear that the human has much to learn about pastry crusts. I had nothing to do with this particular fiasco, other than being plunged into the middle of it in puzzlement when it was brought to the table.

Recipe is as follows:
1kg beef chuck, cut into 3-4cm pieces
Flour, salt, pepper
Onion and garlic
Can tomatoes
Beef stock, cubic or otherwise
250mL Guinness--or in this case homemade herb stout
Worcestershire sauce
Thyme or other herbs, if not already present in beer
Pastry for topping

Mix flour, salt, pepper, and turn beef pieces in mixture to coat. Brown meat in batches in heavy pan, transfer to bowl. Add chopped onion, garlic and some water to pan, cook, scraping flour from bottom of pan. Add tomatoes, cook a couple of minutes. Add beef with juices, stock, beer, worcestershire sauce, herbs if necessary. Cook either in oven or on low heat until meat is tender and sauce is thick, maybe 90 minutes.

Transfer to ovenproof dish--in this case rectangular, cast iron. Let stew cool if you have time, otherwise (if you're hungry) place two egg cups in dish to support crust, then place pastry over top of dish before baking. Puff pastry supported by egg cups or similar will give the result shown above, though variations are doubtless possible. If you're boring or don't wish to offend your dinner guests, use shortcrust pastry and/or let the stew cool before adding the crust and baking. That or make the pies in small individual dishes, but really...

Serve with potatoes, beans, and stout or a good strong Bordeaux.

Mmm!