Aussie Meat Pies

Les Meat Pies

In a fit of homesickness, I asked Mum to request this recipe from an old friend of ours. Les started his cooking career sometime in the mid 1950’s as a shearers cook, and finished it by running a successful bakery in rural Australia. Needless to say these are traditional, Australian meat pies. Very, very simple – very, very good.

The type of fat used to make this pastry must be solid at room temperature i.e. saturated. This limits your choices to unhealthy ones traditionally, beef dripping, pork lard, or any solid vegetable shortening, cream cheese or butter. As far as I know solid fats are the only ones that will produce the flakiness and strength characteristic of pastry. If you think its too unhealthy, do not eat it often, or make something else.




Ingredients:
500gm finely ground lean beef mince
1/2 a minced onion
225 ml water
250 ml of flour/cornflour slurry
2T pepper, combination of white and black
2t salt
1 Worcestershire Sauce
115gm self raising flour
340gm plain flour
170gm dripping/lard
milk to glaze


Preheat oven to 190 degrees Celsius. I use 6 * 8cm pie tins.

Filling:
Lightly fry the meat and onion. Add the water, seasonings and flour slurry and simmer until the meat is cooked, and the filling has an even flavour with lots of gravy. This takes about 15 minutes. You will be able to taste and smell when the flavours are combined. Allow it to cool. As the mixture cools the meat reabsorbs some of the moisture in the pot, and the filling can end up being too dry. So ensure that there is plenty of gravy to start with otherwise the finished pies will be dense with a high proportion of meat. I remember the pies having a tasty balance.

If in doubt, add only half of the thickening at the start, and reassess the filling after it has cooled. You can always add a little more thickener and/or reheat the filling again to cook off excess moisture.

Pastry:
Melt the fat over a low heat until it is quite warm (do not boil). Swirl in water. Do not boil the lard-water mixture as advised in other recipes. I think that there are two consequences of boiling.

Firstly it makes the pastry very crisp. As I remember them, Les pies bases were soft in texture, and crisp on top. The finished pastry was quite thin – no more than 1/4cm thick anywhere. The pies had crisp sides, and a nicely browned top. But the bases were a little stretchy. Sometimes I would pick up a pie to eat it and the bottom would sag slightly towards the plate. It was nice to eat, without being too heavy.

Secondly, if the mixture is at boiling point (or close to it) when you pour it into the flour, the sudden proliferation of nucleation sites causes the liquid to foam up, which is dangerous when you think about the kind of burns boiling fat can cause.

Use a wooden spoon to quickly mix the ingredients until combined, then work with a dough hook until the dough is smooth and comes away from the sides of the bowl. I used setting No. 3 on my Kenwood chef (medium speed). I worked pastry for 2-3 minutes. Could perhaps go 1 minute longer. I have read that hot water pastries like it hot, and rough!

Allow pastry to cool somewhat. This is a matter of practice and judgement. It should be at the correct temperature when ready to line the pie tins. This means flexible enough to handle, but not so soft as to be weak. If it is cold it becomes too stiff to work, and if it is too warm it will not be strong enough. I found the correct temperature of the pastry in my situation to be slightly cooler than body temperature, but not by much. It still felt warm.

Split pastry into two equal portions. One will form the pie bases and the other the lids. A simple way of doing this is to roll the pastry out between two pieces of baking paper. The pastry doesn’t stick and it is easy to flip over the pie tins.

Line the pie tins up in two rows spaced about 2 inches apart from each other. Roll pastry out to about 0.5cm thick. The pastry lids should be rolled thinner than the bases. Lay pastry base over the tins and allow it to relax into them. Do not stretch it. Stretched pastry will shrink when baked. If the pastry sheet doesn’t cover all your tins – don’t worry. Simply collect the excess pastry after completing those it does cover.

Gently press the pastry into the tins to ease it into the corners. You don’t have to be too picky about this, nor too rough. At this point you will discover if your pastry is the right temperature. If its too hot or thin the pastry will tear, too thick or cold and it will not lie nicely in the tins.

Put 1/4 cup of filling into each pie. Do not be tempted to fill them right to the top.

Brush the rim of each pie with a little water to seal the join between the base and the lid.

Place the second (thinner) sheet of pastry over the filled pies, and pressing firmly, roll over them all with a rolling pin. This seals them all at once, and also neatly cuts off the excess pastry. Remove excess pastry, brush pies with milk and place in over for 25-30 minutes.

Keep excess pastry warm by holding in a bowl placed over warm water. Re-roll any excess pastry and complete the rest of the tins in a second batch.

Once the pies have finished baking hold them in a warm place for 10-15 minutes to allow the filling to settle, and avoid scalds when eating!

From Basel to Paris

Intro to Basel

Jason and I are finally settling in to Basel. Its been stressful - everything is quite expensive, and for various reasons life at home is NOISIER that we had hoped - we now live next door to a construction site :-(. This is a pretty church near our place.



I am riding ... A lovely lady called Nadia generously allows me to ride her horse. Jessika kindly welcomes me once or twice a week and we play in the 'wild' - plenty of nearby forests and trails to explore.



These are her paddock mates Nishka and Nalaika, Haflinger mares.



We will be doing some dressage classes in August. This will be interesting, as she has some skill in harness, and dragging logs and so on. She is so very willing. Before we went to Paris I called her from the paddock gate and she stuck her head in the air, whinnied and ran over. Made me all happy inside. What a honey. Me and Jessika.



This is the view from the small forest, looking to the north over the farm. I am on the slopes of a ridge running 4km SW of Fehren from Steinbulhöhe to Schloss Thierstein. I might try and get up to the Schloss one day, although there are some really steep patches. We ride the distance with no trouble. However getting back down a 2 in 5 slope might be too dangerous on horseback.



Please forgive the quality of the photos. I am using my camera phone to take snaps that I can share quickly, since it takes Jason some time to work through the ones he takes with his sexy gear ... and it takes the fun out of it for him if I hassle him constantly!

To Paris
Going to Paris was very amusing. It really reminded us that little Basel (only a few hundred thousand people) is quiet low key - Paris has 2 million people in the centre, and 10 million in the wider metropolitan area. Its big, its fast, its dirty. In my humble opinion it is still the cultural capital of the western world. Despite losses to the English, and of course capitulating to the Germans in WW2 Paris has an incredible collection of art, music, culture, historical objects and buildings.

No wonder Euro Disneyland was so unsuccessful. It has to compete with the ultimate theme park - the City of Paris itself. The Louvre museum makes a major contribution of course. But everywhere you turn there is another church , stately house, museums, and government building. The atmosphere is also built by the historic events have taken place there, not just the buildings themselves. Palais de Justice, where Marie Antoinette was sentenced to death, for example. It blew my mind.

Day 1
We arrived in Paris on Thursday night, and negotiated the airport - our first Parisian queue. The whole transit experience would have been simpler if not for the overly earnest and detailed French directional signage in the airport rail terminal. The signs always seemed to send you in circles, and then disappear at crucial moments. Then followed Gare du Nord, not a single queue but thousands of people rushing in every direction. The Metro was very convenient, but we found it disorienting. When you emerge from the underground it can take a moment to orient yourself.

We stayed in a great area, the 18e arrondisement. Although perhaps not great by every ones standards! It was crowded, had a big ethnic population and was as dirty as most of the rest of Paris. However it was safe, had a variety of eateries, and was very local, not touristy. Just up the hill was the mixed tourist/artist area around Sacre Coeur. Our Metro station had nearly 100 steps ascending to street level. Of course we only discovered the industrial sized lift after we had carried our luggage up all those stairs! The hotel was just what we wanted. It was cheap, clean, quiet and cool (very handy after all the stair climbing). This photo shows the area.


One might wonder "What is France if not fine food?". Well we were rather looking forward to some beef that didn't require us to give up our first born as payment. Cheap take-away options other than Italian and Kebabs (Basel's usual suspects) were also looking good. So we went to a local eatery for dinner and spent about €60 for 2 people including an entree for Jason and a dessert for both of us, wine and an aperitif.

Very traditional fare - Jason had a Faux de Boeuf. This is not what is sounds like, at least to western ears. Did you say "Fake beef?". It simply refers to a grilled steak, with Pomme Frites (French fries, or shoe string fries for the Yanks) and Bearnaise sauce. He thought their Creme Brulee was excellent! My Dad will be happy to know that I sampled French steak tartare and I discovered it was NOT made with horse meat. It was lovely lean beef mince with all the trimmings. Someone in Switzerland, where horse meat is also freely available pointed out if it was that tasty, everybody would be eating it as it is much cheaper than beef ;-). My dessert was the first of many Tarte Tartins I sampled, this one with pear. Delicious. After meandering back to our hotel the long way, we stumbled into bed.

Day 2
Jason and I made contact with Jeremy (Gray) and we met for coffee, to be followed by whatever took our fancy. Jeremy was in town with his god-sister George (they're in the photo below), and her friend Sara. Introductions were made, breakfast was eaten. Coffee was good but the pastries better. Jeremy and George struggled to finish a pain au chocolat with a consistency closer to a frangipane cake rather than a butter pastry!


It was fab to see Jeremy in fine form, and soak up the gossip about Ireland. Glasgow, Ireland if you can believe it! Jason and Jeremy swapped gifts. I must mention of the rather strangely titled "Pimp Juice". A Swiss energy drink. Enough said. Then we were off to Notre Dame for a tour.

First off we climbed the towers. Jason's wondering whether the chimera is going to start chewing on his leg bone. On this trip I learned that there is a difference between gargoyles and chimeras.


Those flying buttresses ... which make the stained glass windows possible. You couldn't have one without the other. Notre Dame was one of the earliest Gothic cathedrals to use flying buttresses. Form and function in one.



The view towards Montparnasse (the area around the modern tower in the middle distance). Montparnasse has undergone major urban redevelopment. You can see how murky the atmosphere is - the traffic in Paris is horrific. It can really ruin the pleasure of being in the city. Paris is also developed with medium rise buildings - a maximum of about 8 stories almost everywhere. The exceptions to the 'flat city' form are high rise Montparnasse, and La Defense the government area and economic hub. These rest of the city stretches for kilometres at virtually the same density of about 20,000- 24,000 residents per square kilometre. It is overwhelming to see a carpet of buildings as far as the eye can see. It is only interrupted (on a clear day) by the hills in the distance which surround the basin on which Paris sits.



One of those hills is Mont Marte on which sits La Basilique du Sacré-Coeur de Montmartre, or more simply Sacre Coeur. You can see it in the very distance as a light grey hill with an indistinct bump on top. The stunning stonework in the foreground of then photo is at the top of one of Notre Dame's towers, and shows the skill and craftsmanship of the time. Construction methods were state of the art when it was built in 1160 (that’s almost nine hundred years ago), and it took 100-200 years to complete.



The facade and portals.





The rose windows, and altar. I was hoping these pictures would give a sense of the scale of the space enclosed by the cathedral. When it was first built it was intended to be able to accommodate the entire population of its diocese at the time - which (and this is going back a long way to my Uni days) was I believe about 5,000-10,000 people. I would be happy to stand corrected.





The Archangel Michael vanquishing Lucifer - a common theme. This fountain stands near the corner of the Latin Quarter just across the Seine from Notre Dame.



You know who .. you know where, and no we didn't climb to the top. Couldn't see very far, and our feet were already suffering!



Yes, we were both there... someone had to be taking these photos! Everyone stopped to take photos of the Arc de Triomphe from a traffic island. It looks dangerous, there were at least four lanes of traffic in each direction and its always busy! But its really quite safe. Who were we to break the pattern ~:-/.



Even construction sites in central Paris have to look good ... especially when they are next door to a Giorgio Armani shop just off the Champs Elysee!!! This surreal hoarding caught our eye, and drew us off the main street to investigate.



A fab dinner was had by all in the Opera district, people variously had onion soup, pasta, tuna carpaccio (that was yummy!) and risotto st jacques (seafood, really), beef carpaccio and so on. Sara, George and Jeremy went on in search of crepes and ice cream. Jason and I had a rather adventurous journey home, through some of the seedier parts of Paris after the Metro shut down!

Day 3
It is possible to have too much culture in one day. So a diversion was required! A day of shopping. Even Jason took it rather well. Me after some shopping therapy!



This time we dipped into a local African eatery for dinner. Some really tasty beef skewers, rice and the most volcanic chilli sauce ever. Long necks of Heineken as a side. A steal at €25 for two.

Day 4
And of course the Louvre. What a feast. We spent all Sunday inside, and my mind is still ravishing the beautiful art. The regent diamond, was, well very LARGE. Lunch was a sumptuous degustation menu including pork, rabbit, tuna, gazpacho, avocado, and a dessert buffet to die for! Real petit fours and creme fraiche with all the trimmings. Yum!

On an equine note, this was something quite beautiful and strange we saw there. Apparently complete specimens of this type are rare. It is an Iron bit, found in a tomb of Vergina (A woman or a virgin? I couldn't tell with my poor grasp of French) in Macedonia, and testifies to the sacrifice of horses in a funerary context.



Unsurprisingly I found the famous works (Mona Lisa and Venus de Milo) were unique for the force of personality that emanated from them. The Mona Lisa was so modest, but confident. And Venus seemed to have a sense of humour. One just has to imagine what her hands were doing. Having seen it I support the idea that she is missing an apple, and is holding/offering it in her hand. One sculpture that really took me by surprise was Cupid and Psyche. They really looked like they were falling into each others eyes - no photo of that unfortunately. You will just have to browse Le Louvres database (search under "Psyché ranimée par le baiser de l'Amour", A. Canova).



We slogged home, foot sore but satisfied. Croques please! Paris' cheapest feed for €3-5 per person, depending on how elaborate they get. The local pub fed us for €20 including copious beer, and MORE patisserie after!

Day 5
The Palais Garnier - or old Opera House from the top of the Galeries Lafayette. The Paris ballet company works out of here. Photos of this building were difficult ~:-o. The king had his own personal entrance in the form of a ramp sweeping up, through and out the building, so his carriage could be drawn up inside, he could enter the hall without having to mix with too many lower class nobles, and then entertain his immediate court in a private salon. A stunning little salon called "Rotonde de la Lune" invitied fantasies of high Vampires standing beneath its beautiful frescoes of the night sky.



The photos below show the Kings private entrance, and some interesting spiky details and the rather luxurious gold statues on the main facade.





Monday afternoon rolled around, and it was time we headed to the airport. We were very relieved to get home, and while we recover from Paris we are already trying to figure out how to get to a conference in Italy in a couple of weeks ... I guess summer is the season for travelling over here! As a friend said, "Someone has to do it." Ce'st la vie !