Category: pie

Categories
pickled onions pie steak

steak and pickled onion pie

steak and pickled onion pie

Winter time means pie time. That usually means something packed with meat, a lovely gravy and crisp pastry. I’m certainly not going to get involved in the “should it have pastry all round the sides” debate. You enjoy your pie however you like it.

In one of Jamie’s recent “5 ingredient” meals, he stewed lamb with pickled onions from the jar and it was a cracking little feast. It struck me how good a pie filling it would make. Turns out, coupled with cheese pastry, it was! That tang of vinegar with rich beef is a great combo.

And if you don’t fancy making your own pastry, just buy it. No one will mind. But if you have a few minutes to spare, you’ll find it really satisfying. Plus you get to add cheese 🙂

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steak and pickled onion pie

Course Main Dish
Cuisine English
Servings 4 people
Author Gary @ BigSpud

Ingredients

For the filling

  • 180 g jar of pickled onions drained
  • 500 g stewing beef diced
  • 1 glass red wine
  • 1 litre beef stock
  • 1/2 teaspoon tomato puree
  • 1 tablespoon plain flour

For the pastry

  • 500 g plain flour
  • 50 g cheddar grated
  • 250 g butter
  • 2 eggs

To finish the gravy

  • 1 teaspoon English mustard
  • 1 teaspoon cornflour

Instructions

  • Preheat the oven to 160C. Get a large casserole pan over a medium heat. Dice the beef and toss in the flour along with salt and pepper.
  • Add a splash of oil to the pan and fry the beef for a couple of minutes until it is browned on each side. Add the red wine and let it bubble until reduced a bit, then add the tomato puree, pickled onions and stock. Bring to the boil, cover and then transfer to the oven. Cook for 90 minutes or until the beef is tender to the touch. Drain the meat in a sieve over a bowl and keep the liquid. Allow to cool.
  • To make the pastry rub the butter and flour together, then mix in the cheese and 1 egg with a pinch of salt (save an egg for glazing). Add a splash of milk if needed to bind. (If you want, this can be done very quickly by whizzing everything together in a food processor). Wrap in clingfilm and put in the fridge to rest for 30 mins.
  • Preheat the oven to 200C. Cut a large circle of pastry and lay it in a pie dish, leaving plenty overhanging the edges. Pile in the cold beef and onion mix, then cover with another disc of pastry. Smoosh up the edges to look nice using a fork, and poke a hole in the centre to let the steam out. Brush with a beaten egg and bake for 25 minutes or until the pastry is golden.
  • While the pie cooks, put the reserved liquid in a saucepan and bring to the boil. Mix a teaspoon each of mustard powder and cornflour with a little water to make a paste, and stir through the gravy. Serve with chips and greens.
Categories
bacon pie pork

home made pork pie

I’ve eaten pork pies hundreds of times but this was my first attempt at a home made pork pie. It’s really worth the effort.

If you are English and reading this you will already know what I mean by the phrase “pork pie”. It has a very definite meaning: a raised, crisp pastry, filled with coarse meat surrounded by a spiced jelly. It’s a picnic mainstay and a lock for any buffet table.

The pastry is specific. It is a hot water made with boiling lard, which crystallizes as it cools to give it a distinctive crunch. In centuries past the pastry was a container for the filling and was meant to be discarded, it is relatively recently that the pastry became edible.

As a further preserving agent, clarified butter was poured around the meat to keep it good. This has shifted over time to the divisive jelly. In my opinion the surrounding opaque jelly really makes it, but there are plenty of people who will tell you it’s revolting.

The popularity of the pork pie centres around the town of Melton Mowbray in Leicestershire, which has held PDO appellation since 2008. The booming dairy industry of the 1700s led to a surplus of whey, which became pig fodder. All this meat needs to be kept somewhere hence, the pork pie rose up around these farms.

I chose to make one large home made pork pie instead of smaller ones. You combine various pork meats…

Mix up your pastry and line a tin…

Fill with meat and bake. Later you pour in jelly from the top. It’s a little shambolic round the edges but it’s a lot of fun to make. I hadn’t made hot water pastry before and it spits with volcanic fury so be careful, but it is quite manageable.

Obviously it makes quite a large pie to go around, but you may as well. I enjoyed mine at my office the following day.

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home made pork pie

Author Gary @ BigSpud

Ingredients

For the pastry:

  • 150 ml water
  • 150 ml milk
  • 175 g lard
  • 675 g plain flour
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 1 egg beaten

For the filling:

  • 700 g pork belly
  • 700 g pork shoulder
  • 6 rashers smoked streaky bacon
  • 2 onions diced
  • 1/2 nutmeg grated
  • 1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
  • 1/2 teaspoon dried sage
  • 1 teaspoon mustard

For the jelly:

  • 500 ml chicken stock
  • 250 ml apple juice
  • 2 sheets leaf gelatine snipped

Instructions

  • Fry the onions gently with the sage, thyme, nutmeg and mustard, then leave to cool.
  • Dice the porks and bacon together (I pulsed mine very gently in batches in a food processor). Combine with the onion mix and season generously with salt and pepper.
  • For the pastry bring the water, milk and lard to the boil in a saucepan. Sift in the flour and salt and beat with a wooden spoon to make a dough. Grease an 18cm springform baking tin and line with paper. When cool enough to handle roll the pastry to 5mm thick and use 3/4 of it to line your baking tin. Fill with the meat and then use the remaining pastry to make a lid. Use a fork to make a sealing pattern around the edge, then glaze with the egg. Poke a thumb-sized hole in the top with a knife to let the steam escape. Bake at 220C for 30 minutes, then turn down the oven to 190C for a further 1 hour. If it looks to be going brown a little prematurely cover with foil. You're looking for an internal temperature of 65C when probed.
  • While it cools, make the jelly stock. Soak the gelatine in cold water for twenty minutes. Bring the stock and juice combined to a simmer. Squeeze the gelatine of excess water and whisk into the stock until dissolved. Remember the hole you poked in the pie earlier? Force a funnel into it and trickle the stock into the pie. It'll take a little at a time as it seeps in, and keep topping it up until it cannae take no more. Leave in the fridge to set for at least 24 hours, and if you can wait a few more days it will taste even better. Serve with pickles and cheese.

Need more pies?

Try Elizabeth’s leftover roast beef pie. I love the sound of this one!

Categories
lamb leftovers pastry pie swede

lamb and veg pie

Sainsbury’s are currently pushing us to make more of your leftovers. Growing up, we always had a roast on a Sunday and leftovers for the next day or two afterwards. As often as I can, I like to do the same. I think it’s well worth spending a little more, buying a larger joint with the assumption there will be 3, 4 or possibly 5 dinners out of the one roasting joint! That’s the case with this lamb and veg pie, made from succulent lamb leftovers. Leftovers also went into my L & P, lamb boulangere.

If you’re not convinced you’re going to use the meat in the next day or two, slice the meat and freeze in portions. I tend to measure out about 250g roast meat as this a good size to scale up or down. Then you only need to bring out a bit at a time.

As well as this lamb leftovers bonanza, I also sliced up some roast pork. I made a pork rendang, based on this great beef rendang recipe. And here’s pork meatballs, blitzed up with a few going off cream crackers and a handful of chopped herbs, served with linguine and tomato courgette sauce.

So it doesn’t have to be just ham egg and chips or sandwiches – although there’s nothing wrong with either of those! – but wherever you’d use meat in a recipe, you can probably use roasted meat instead. You’ll be able to make it much quicker as most of the cooking is already done.

Here’s a great selection of recipes from Sainsbury’s for making the most of your leftovers.

Want more leftover recipes? Try a potato pancake stuffed with goodies, a risotto made with stock from the carcass, or follow Sainsburys #foodgofurther hashtag on Twitter.

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lamb and veg pie

Author Gary @ BigSpud

Ingredients

  • 200 g flour
  • 50 g butter cubed
  • 50 g lard cubed
  • 250 g leftover lamb
  • 1 swede peeled and diced
  • 2 carrots peeled and diced
  • 1 onion diced
  • 1 teaspoon mixed herbs
  • 1 teaspoon English mustard
  • 400 ml chicken stock

Instructions

  • First make the pastry. Rub the fats into the flour until it's all crumbly, then add a little water until it comes together into a smooth dough. Leave to rest in the fridge until needed.
  • Preheat the oven to 180C. Pop the lamb, veg, mustard, herbs and stock into a baking dish. Roll the pastry to the thickness of a pound coin and cover the pie. Slash the lid to allow the steam to escape, and brush with an egg or milk wash if you have some spare. If you've got some, a little sprinkle of coarse sea salt on top will be a great flavour punch. Pop in the oven and bake for 30 mins until golden and risen. Serve with greens and gravy.
Categories
beef food mushroom mustard pie rosemary

patchwork pie

I was coming home on the train and decided it would be pie or nothing for dinner. Luckily all the ingredients were on hand. Patchwork for two reasons: I had some squares of puff pastry to use because I’d absent-mindedly cut loads more than I need when making sausage rolls; and ended up using a hodge-podge of all odds and ends things I like.

Patchwork pie (serves 4 – 5):

500g beef mince

100g mushrooms, sliced

1 sprig rosemary, leaves picked

1 clove garlic, minced

50ml red wine

1 pack of ready-cooked chestnuts

300ml beef stock

1 teaspoon cornflour

1 sheet puff pastry, cut into squares

1 egg, beaten

1 teaspoon English mustard

  1. Get your oven on to 180°C, and two frying pans over high heat with a dash of olive oil in each.
  2. In one of the pans get the mince in and stir often until browned and starting to crisp up. In the other pan fry the mushrooms and rosemary together. After 5 mins add the garlic.
  3. When the mince has browned add the red wine to deglaze the pan a bit, then add the stock, chestnuts and the contents of the mushroom pan. Mix the cornflour with a splash of water to make a paste, then stir this in thoroughly.
  4. Bubble away for a couple more minutes until thickened, then pour into a baking dish. Layer the squares as neatly as you like over the filling. Mix the mustard into the egg and brush over the pastry. Sprinkle with some coarse sea salt and bake for 30 minutes until golden and puffy (well, it is puff pastry after all). Serve with carrots braised in butter and dusted with nutmeg.
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