Meat and Potato Pie

There's a cold that arrives in November and doesn't leave until March. Not dramatic cold. A steady, grey insistence that follows you indoors and sits in your bones. This is the pie for that cold.

Meat and potato pie is Wigan food, Lancashire food, the kind of cooking that doesn't appear in glossy books or win awards. Beef and potatoes and onion, seasoned with nothing more than salt and white pepper, wrapped in suet pastry that bakes to something golden and giving. The filling steams when you cut in, rich and savoury and utterly plain. There's no herb garnish, no jus on the side. A pie, a plate, and the quiet satisfaction of feeding someone properly on a dark evening.

I think about the hands that made this for generations before anyone thought to write it down. Women who could make a pound of braising steak feed six people and make every one of them feel looked after. That's not humble cooking. That's skill in ordinary clothes.

Get the best beef you can. Chuck or braising steak with a bit of fat running through it, because lean meat dries out in a long bake and has nothing to give the potatoes. The suet pastry is quick to make and forgiving to work with. If you've never made pastry before, start here. Your kitchen, your rules. We're only making dinner.