Meat Pies

Perhaps I had London and England on my mind because I am reading "At Home", by Bill Bryson, which is about how many of the things that either make up our home or are in our homes today came by way of rather obscure and interesting histories... An compelling read for certain.

In any case, I chose to make some mini meat pies.  

The recipe is from Donna Hay June/July 2011, and somewhat tailored to what I felt like.  

She included ham and cooked her leek in butter, where as I did not and cooked 

with olive oil because I used only one quantity of hot water pastry for my pies 

and made the rest of the meat filling into gluten and dairy free 'sausages' in a mini muffin tin.

Mine aren't as perfectly rolled out and lovely as the picture in the magazine, 

which has something to do with skill of course, but I would, should I try these pies again, 

use the pastry immediately rather than storing in the fridge before using and 

I'd make sure my edges were sealed to keep the juices from escaping!

This made 8 muffin sized pies, plus 6 'sausages'.

 

Hot Water Pastry:

150 grams Butter

2/3 cup Water

2 1/2 cups Flour

1/2 tsp Salt

*Plus one Egg for the Egg wash

Meat Filling:

1 Leek, chopped

3 cloves minced Garlic

2 tbsp Tarragon

500 grams minced Chicken

500 grams minced Pork

Salt and Pepper

How I Did It:

Make the hot water pastry first as it needs some time to cool:  

Melt butter in water in a pot over the stove.  

When melted stir in flour and salt.  

Stir with wooden spoon until you can pick it up and transfer to counter. 

Kneed until smooth.  Set aside.  

Cook one chopped leek in a pan of oil or butter along with garlic and tarragon, until soft.  

Grind the meat and mix with leek mixture; season with salt and pepper.  

Roll and cut pastry to your liking and stuff pies with meat mixture.  

Give an egg wash to the tops.  

Bake about an hour at 350 degrees F.

I've heard stories about bakers of meat pies visiting mortuaries for ingredients... 

Rough times... perhaps? Or just moments of devious ingenuity!? 

“Why, there they are both, baked in that pie;
 Whereof their mother daintily hath fed,
Eating the flesh that she herself hath bred.”

(Titus Andronicus) 

Thanks for that Shakespeare!!! 

And while we're on the trivia topic, the book mentioned above, 

gives the history of recipes written in the format we know and love, 

which was created by one Eliza Acton in her book, 

"Modern Cookery for Private Families".  

Perhaps because she was originally a poet we have these verse like lists and instructions.  

Well I like to think so!  

Her originality was though, was exact measurements of ingredients

 and lengths of time for cooking or baking.  

We have been carefully measuring since 1845, thanks to Miss Eliza.