2 medium-sized sweet potatoes, peeled and cut into 2cm pieces
Half a butternut, cut into 2cm pieces
1 large yellow/orange bell pepper, diced into 1cm pieces
150g Portobello or brown mushrooms, quartered
5 or 6 young carrots, chopped
300ml vegetable stock
Pinch of rosemary
Packet of puff pastry
Method
Fry the two diced red onions in about two tablespoons of olive oil until brown.
Add the garlic and a couple of sprigs of rosemary and fry for three minutes.
Add diced peppers and mushrooms. For extra deliciousness and to ensure nothing sticks in the pot, add a little knob of butter.
Once the peppers and mushrooms begin to get soft, add the diced carrots, butternut and sweet potato. Stir every few minutes until the butternut and sweet potato are the tiniest bit soft.
Heat up the vegetable stock. Stir the tomato paste into the stock and add the mixture to the pot. Ideally, the liquid should not cover the veggies completely.
Reduce on low heat for 20-30 minutes.
Once the stew has reduced a bit, add the Castle Milk Stout. Don’t worry if everything looks a bit foamy and it smells a bit weird. That’s normal and mostly due to the alcohol evaporating.
Preheat the oven to 120°C.
After further reducing for another 10 minutes, put the stew in an ovenproof dish or pot and bake it for an hour at 120°C.
The stew should be brown and beautifully reduced when the hour is up. Take it out, give it a stir and let it rest while you preheat the oven to 180°C.
Cut the puff pastry and lay it on top of your dish. Put your pastried pie inside the oven at 180°C for 30-40 minutes or until the pastry turns golden. For better results, you may want to egg-wash the pastry, but it’s not essential with many readymade puff pastries.
