I just put it on. I have no idea how to cook a brisket, so I just made it up. Slow pot roast. Don't even need to bother with the oven. An actual slow cooker would be nice, but my gas stove goes low enough.
1 (or 2) diced onion caramelised with basil, salt and pepper and a little veg oil.
Add the tied brisket to the pot.
When it starts trying to burn the onions, add water to glaze the pan. (harvesting lots of lovely caramel onion).
After a while doing this add 1 beef stock cube to a cup of boiling water and add.
Top up with boiling water so the meat is just uncovered.
Add a packet of mixed frozen veg. Stir.
Put the lid on, put the stove on a very very small heat and leave it for 2 hours.
Carefully turn the brisket, top up the water if necessary and return to a low heat covered for another 2 hours.
Eventually, lift the brisket out to rest.
Add a cup of marrow fat peas and boil off the excess of the pot remains. This will become the gravy and main pie "padding".
Slice or pull the brisket into chunks, line the pie dish with them.
Add gravy granules to the "pot remains" if needed to thicken.
Spread generously over the brisket.
Carefully lay re-rolled puff pastry over the pie dish. Trim.
Throw into an oven pre-heated at 225C set immediately down to 200C for 25mins. Rest for 5 minutes. Serve. You want to puff as much of the pastry as possible before it sags into the filling.... without burning the top layer.
Proper beef pie. You can use pot-roast, silverside, top side, I even made it with diced rump steak. The problem is always the same. You never seem to have enough actual meet in the pie. So this is why I moved to using briskets and joints instead of steak peices and making something similar to the crap you buy in the supermarket.
Cheap ... no. A brisket here for a 12" pie is about 1kg and about £10. So all in the pie is about £12. (+gas). It would make the main meal for 2 or 3 with nothing worth talking about remaining.