Minced Beef Pie

This is an old fashioned Irish recipe that I got from an 1980's cookbook that was only sold abroad, titled Traditional Irish Recipes. My father is the owner of the copy I've been using and he guards it closely, I got it on loan on condition that I return it pretty sharpish because my mother got this copy in Haiti!
It is full of old recipes like Yellowman (honeycomb) and homemade buttermilk. I decided that this recipe was the most appealing and made it, but without the stout, it was a great success here and well worth the effort. My Pyrex dish is fairly large so I could have easily fed six adults and I've made a second pie and frozen it, I think I'll defrost it and then reheat it in the oven.

Serves 4-6

Ingredients
500g - 750g Minced Beef
2tbsp Oil
1 Onion, chopped
1tbsp Tomato puree
1 ½ tbsp Plain flour
75g Mushrooms, chopped (Optional)
250ml Stout or Beef stock
Dash of Worcestershire sauce
250g - 350g Ready rolled shortcrust pastry or Step- by- step handmade shortcrust pastry.

Method
Preheat the oven to 200C/400F/Gas Mark 6. Grease and flour an ovenproof pie dish. My glass Pyrex dish is 22cm across and 4cm deep so it took all 750g of the beef to fill the dish, if your dish isn't as deep then 500g should be enough. I greased and floured the dish in order to slip the pie out of the dish to serve.
Heat the oil in a large deep frying pan over a medium heat and fry the onion until soft. Add the beef and cook for 6-7 minutes until completely browned. Stir in the tomato puree and cook for another 2-3 minutes. Stir in the flour, add the stock and a couple of dashes of Worcestershire sauce, stirring all the time. Bring to the boil, reduce the heat, cover and simmer for 20 minutes. Remove from the heat to cool.

Meanwhile roll out two thirds of the pastry fairly thinly and larger that your pie dish.

Gently drape the pastry over the dish and press into the edges.

Trim the edges with a sharp knife, pour the slightly cooled minced beef into the pie dish. Brush around the edges of the dish with the beaten egg.

Roll out the remaining pastry and lay on top, trim with a knife, press down firmly with a fork until the lid is sealed.

Cut a X to let out the steam, brush with the beaten egg and bake for 20-25 minutes, or until golden brown.