Lamb Bourguignon from the Bake-Off
I happened to be watching The Great Australia Bake-Off and they were making Lamb Bourguignon Pie. What a coincidence, as I was about to make this Boeuf Bourguignon version. All those luscious Boeuf Bourguignon ingredients of mushrooms, beef, red wine and lardons to make the classic French stew covered by puff pastry. The hardest thing about it was how to spell it actually! Coincidences tend to pop up out of nowhere and can be fun and even helpful. Not like other things that pop up too often these days. For example, I picked up the phone one day and was struck by a quite aggressive man who after citing the microsoft Licence ID Number of my computer, and the date and place of purchase, proceeded to tell me that “in 20 minutes my computer would be deactivated from the Microsoft server and no-one in the whole world would be able to fix it.” !! Okay?! Such an invasion in your own home, not to mention the emails that inundate our inboxes full of “answer a simple question for a free gift” so we are tempted to click on the link or worse, “you’ve been hacked.” Nothing is sacred anymore, least of all our privacy! Be careful out there!!!!
For this bake I cooked the diced streaky bacon and set this aside. I then cut the meat up into cubes and browned in a frying pan with olive oil, then 
set this aside. 
Then cut up the onions and browned them in the same pan.
A lot of browning going on. Then I tipped a tablespoon of flour into the casserole, browned that (believe it or not), then poured in 3/4 bottle of wine, garlic 
and a bay leaf. 
I re-added the meat, onions and mushrooms to the casserole and cooked for an hour and a half on a medium heat in the oven. I had to go out to my daughter’s end of year art exhibition, 
so cooked the pie the next day. 
That was the beauty, you didn’t have to do this bake all at once. I kept the cooled cooked bourguignon filling in the fridge overnight. 
The next afternoon I cut out a strip of pastry and pressed this onto the dampened rim of the casserole dish.
Then covered the pie dish with the remaining pastry and tried my best to flute the sides! Then baked it in the oven until golden brown. Delicious dinner. 🙂
