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!