This is possibly one of the tastiest dishes we have tried. It has a rich layer of sweet chipotle beef, a cream cheese and spinach layer and is topped with a perfectly golden-brown cover of filo pastry. It is a wholesome pie, full of lovely flavours with a delicious Mexican twist thanks to the sweetened chipotles adding just a hint of spiciness. We hope you like it as much as we did.
Sweet Chipotle Beef
-15g butter
-500g minced beef
-½ tbsp flour
-200g tin chopped tomatoes
-1 tbsp tomato paste
-2 garlic cloves, crushed
-1 heaped tbsp Chipotles in Adobo
-1 tsp honey (or more to taste)
-Salt & pepper to taste
1 Melt the butter in a large pan over medium-high heat. Add the mince and brown the beef.
2 Add the flour and stir for one minute. Add the garlic, chipotles, honey and tomatoes. Add a good shake of salt and pepper and bring to a boil. Cover and simmer for 25 minutes. Taste and adjust the seasoning accordingly. The beef mixture should have thickened by this point. Allow to cool down a bit before the next step.
Spinach / Kale & Cheese Mix
-300g spinach/kale, roughly chopped
-50g mature Cheddar cheese, grated
-50g Emmental or Gouda cheese, grated
-75g cream cheese
-1 egg, lightly beaten
-salt and pepper
1 Add the spinach to a medium saucepan and cook over medium-low heat until it softens. Once ready, remove most of the water by squeezing over a colander.
2 In a medium-sized bowl, mix the Cheddar, Emmental or Gouda cheese, cream cheese and egg. Add the drained spinach and mix once again. Add salt and pepper and reserve.
Sweet Chipotle Filo Beef Pie
-6 sheets of filo pastry
-30g butter, melted
-Sweet chipotle beef
-Spinach and cheese mix
1 Set oven to 200C
2 Add the sweet chipotle beef to a shallow baking dish.
3 Add the spinach and cheese mixture over the sweet chipotle beef as a second layer. Spread over the beef evenly with the help of a spatula.
4 Brush two of the filo pastry sheets with a little of the melted butter and cover the spinach and cheese mixture. You can cut the filo pastry to fit your dish or you can just scrunch the sides.
5 Brush the remaining filo pastry sheets with the rest of the butter and scrunch one by one over the previous two layers. See the image below.
6 Bake in the oven for 20 to 25 minutes or until the pastry is lovely and golden brown.
Notes
- Inspired by one of our favourite Mary Berry recipes, Beef Florentine. Her recipe calls for sugar to be added to the beef. We gave it a Mexican twist by adding honey and chipotle.
- Alternatively, you can place the filo pastry first into the baking dish, leaving enough filo to go up the sides of the dish. Add then the beef followed by the spinach mixture. Crunch the filo pastry around the edges and brush with butter before baking in the oven. See the first image. We have made the pie both ways and it works great!
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