Steak and cheese pie,

and a silky smooth semolina dessert with a warm berry sauce.

This week, let’s dive straight in with a hearty winter recipe that is taken from my cookbook The Cottage Kitchen, with a few new adjustments to it.

It is full of flavour, and for cold days in January, that may need all the help they can get, to bring us a bit of joy, after the brilliant festive season. This humble pie will bring just that, a bit of food joy and warming comfort, to your days this month.

I’d love to hear from you if you make it, and if your looking for a dessert, I’ve added one with this newsletter a bit further down, but you could also make the decadent and beautifully simple Chocolate, Cointreau and Orange Eton mess, from last week, linked at the end of this newsletter.

We’re just about to pack our bags and head back to England, after glories days on the fjord island in Norway with family.

And true to form, we’ve swam in the ocean in freezing conditions, filled up on traditional biscuits, and played in the snow more hours than I can count. There’s only one thing left to do, a session in the sauna, with another swim at the end of the week.

It’s a must.

I can feel my body yearning for it, and words fail me when trying to explain just how great it feels during the two hours in the sauna that’s gently floating on the water down by the pier on our island.

The open fire is roaring in front of us, and steam fills the room as soon as more water is poured on the piping hots rocks on top of the fire. The tall glass windows create beautiful frames into the frozen winter landscape outside. And in between sweating and breathing in warmth, we cut a hole in the ice outside and sink into the freezing water, with regular intervals.

I took it completely for granted growing up in Norway, that my school had a sauna that we could go into all winter, after our gym class. But today I realise what an incredible privilege it was, this tradition of saunas at schools throughout the land. And so now, as soon as I’m back in England I will seek them out, and spend afternoons sweating and swimming.

A tradition imbedded in my body since childhood.

So after one more session, the woollen socks and mittens will be swapped for wellies and long walk in the evergreen English countryside, and even if I wax lyrical about England when in Norway, and of Norway when in England, and for those of you who know me well, Italy, as it is after all my second home, I’m lucky to call them all home.

But let’s get cooking.

Put on the apron with me, pick up a heavy bottomed saucepan, and open the wax paper with meat from the local butcher onto my marble kitchen counter.

I’ve put another log on the fireplace, the kettle is whistling, and steak and cheese pie is on the menu, with an almond semolina pudding for dessert, with a delicious warm berry sauce spooned over generously.

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Steak and cheese pie

Serves 4-6 people

Ingredients:

Stewing beef, 700g, cut into bite size pieces.

You might also find this not too lean, nor too fatty cuts of beef under the name chuck steak, braising steak, or gravy beef.

Chicken stock, 350ml

Taleggio cheese, 200g (If you can’t find Taleggio, try Fontina.)

Dry white wine, 150ml.

When it comes to wine in my kitchen if I wouldn't want to drink it, I don’t cook with it, as you will always be able to get a better result with quality ingredients.

Onion, 1 (medium), chopped

Garlic, 2-3 cloves, finely chopped

Dried porcini, 2 tablespoons, roughly chopped

Fresh thyme sprigs, 2-3, finely chopped

Sage, 1 tablespoon, finely chopped

All purpose flour, 2 tablespoons.

Bay leaves, dry, 2

Butter, 2-3 tablespoons

Olive oil, 1 tablespoon (can be omitted and just add more butter)

Puff pastry, frozen, 250g

Method:

Preheat oven to 180 Celsius. ( I use a fan oven)

Season the meat and add to a large ovenproof saucepan set over medium heat. Add half the butter and half the oil, and brown the meat working in batches to avoid “boiling” it, 3-4 minutes on all sides.

Transfer to a plate and set a side.

Add a splash of white wine to the warm saucepan to deglaze it. Pour it into a jug and set aside.

Add oil and the chopped onions to the saucepan and cook till lightly translucent, about 5-8 minutes.

Add the rest of the butter to the saucepan with the onions, melt before stirring in the flour to create a paste.

Cook till browned a bit and has a nutty flavour, about 3 minutes. The paste needs to properly bubble and boil for the flour taste to disappear. Gradually add the stock while whisking, before adding the meat, porcini, herbs, bay leaf, and the deglaze we set aside earlier.

Cover with an ovenproof lid and place the saucepan in the oven and bake till the meat is tender, about 1 1/2 hours.

Take it out and leave to cool, before placing in the fridge overnight. If you don’t have the time, leave it in the fridge for a leats 4 hours to allow for the flavours to develop.

When ready to assemble the pie, take the meat filling out of the fridge at least 30 min before to allow it to reach room temperature.

Preheat the oven to 180 Celsius

Butter a 24 cm round pie dish with the depth of at least 4 cm.