Braai Beef Pie

1. The night before the cook, prep the shin by trimming away the hard outer of the meat and season well with uncle beef braai rub and place in the fridge.
2. Following day, remove the beef and leave to come, to room temperature. Set up your BBQ to cook indirect at around 120c. I also used cherry wood to give it a subtle Smokey flavour.
3. Once the BBQ is up to temp and the smoke is rolling place the beef onto the BBQ and cook until the bark is set and the meat temp is around 70c.
4. At this point in a deep pot warm through the stock, Guinness, onion, garlic and another healthy sprinkle of braai rub.
5. Once warmed up transfer the shin including bone if it has come detached to the pot and cover with either the lid or tightly seal with tin foil.
6. Place back on the heat and raise to 150c and cook until the beef probes tender enough to pull around the 95c mark approx.
7. Once ready remove the whole pot from the heat and transfer the beef to another dish or tray and shred into pieces and leave to cool (and place in the fridge overnight if needed.)
8. Take the broth the beef was cooked in and pass through a sieve into a large saucepan to remove all the onion and garlic pieces and leave to cool with the beef.
9. When the broth has cooled it makes it easier to remove the excess fat as it will have gone hard on the top.
10. To stop your pie base not cooking correctly I found the best way is to blind bake the base first. This ensures the base crust doesn’t end up raw. Butter your pie dish and line with your pastry and cover with greaseproof paper and pour a layer of rice. Place in 180c oven for 15mins then 5 mins with rice and paper removed. This should just start to go golden.
11. Whilst the base is cooking warm up the broth let it simmer and gradually add some cornflour to thicken as this is going to be your gravy.
12. When you're ready to fill your pie add some of the gravy to your beef. Not too much just enough to coat the meat. Once coated fill your pie dish to the top.
13. Place the remaining pastry onto the top crimp down and egg wash (don’t forget to add a steam hole into the top.
14. Place into the oven at 180c until the top has turned golden. Once golden remove and allow the pie to rest for 15-20mins. This allows the pastry to firm up before slicing.
15. Now slice and serve, my favourite way is with chips peas and the left-over gravy you just made.

Depending on the size of the beef shin it can take 10-12hrs to cook, so after shredding the beef and straining the broth, once cooled it can all be transferred to the fridge and the pie can be made the following day.