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Chilli corn pie

Silvana Franco from Great Food Bites
Full-flavoured and wholesome, Silvana Franco's muffin-topped pie yields to a delectable spicy meat filling below

Chilli corn pie

Method

1. Place the steak in a large bowl and pour over the wine and add the rosemary. Set aside for an hour or two, stirring from time to time - this tenderises and flavours the meat.

2. Heat the oil in a large, sturdy pan and cook the onion, garlic, and bacon for 3-4 minutes. Add the cumin seeds and cook for a minute more.

3. Add the steak, wine and rosemary to the pan. Stir in the chopped tomatoes then fill one of the cans with water and add that to the pan too.

4. Stir in the drained beans, chilli, paprika, sugar and add some salt and pepper. Bring to the boil and cook briskly for 10 minutes before lowering the heat. Simmer for 2 hours until the meat and beans are tender.

5. While the beans and meat are cooking make the muffin mixture.

6. For the muffin batter; preheat the oven to 200C/Gas 6.

7. Sift the flour and baking powder into a large bowl and stir in the cornmeal (or polenta), baking powder, sugar, salt, corn kernels and three- quarters of the cheese. Crack the egg into a separate bowl and whisk in the milk and melted butter.

8. Stir the egg and milk mixture into the dry ingredients, taking care not to over-stir.

9. Spread the chilli mixture in a heatproof dish. Spoon over the muffin mix - don't worry if some of the chilli shows through. Scatter over the reserved cheese and bake at for 20 minutes or so until firm and risen.

Cook's note; you can also bake the muffin mixture separately from the meat. Divide the batter between a paper-lined 12-hole muffin tin and scatter over the reserved cheese. Bake at 200C/gas 6 for 20 minutes, until firm to the touch.

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Serves: 6

Prep: 25 min, plus 2 hrs marinating
Cook: 2 hrs 30 min

Ingredients
1kg braising steak, cubed
350ml Red wine
4 sprigs Rosemary
1 tbsp Olive oil
1 small onion, chopped
2 large garlic cloves, chopped
4 streaky bacon rashers, roughly chopped
1 tsp Cumin seeds
2 x 400g tinned chopped tomatoes
100g dried cannellini beans, soaked overnight and drained
1 tsp crushed chilli flakes
1 tsp smoked paprika
1 sugar cube
fine sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

For the muffin mixture

200g plain flour
2 tsp Baking powder
125g cornmeal or Polenta
1 tsp caster sugar
1 tsp Salt
100g Sweetcorn
200g mature Cheddar cheese, coarsely grated
1 egg, beaten
300ml Milk
50g Butter, melted, plus extra for greasing