Favorite Seasonings for Meat Pies

[All-Rounder]

Meanwhile... The meatpie fever has spread throughout the world.

 

[Jonn]

Now you'll see two different tags in butcher shops: Grain Fed and Grass Fed. Grain fed is the rubbish with all the fat in it that we sell to Japan. Grass fed looks like this:

Grass-fed is healthier...
Erm, for humans, not the poor bovines.

The dilemma for me is that I find killing animals for food disgusting, but my histamine and gluten intolerances pretty much force me to eat more meat than carbs.
I am keeping a keen eye on "test tube meat", which is getting closer to commercial viability.
Ideally, all farming of animals for food will become "extinct" before I fall off the perch.
That would garner me a great deal of satisfaction.

Lab-grown meat: It's growing legs locally​

Lab-grown meat: It's growing legs locally

Let's not mince words. Cultivated meat is making a global push with its potential to eliminate the downsides of current meat consumption.

independentaustralia.net

 

[Jonn]

Sweet baby Jesus in the morning, why would anyone make a video game like that?

It is a harbinger of future events to get ppl used to the idea, shades of Soylent Green!

 

[Jonn]

And to us a beef and potato pie is just a normal beef pie except it has mashed potato for a top instead of pastry.

I sometimes buy these to reduce the amount of gluten in my diet.

 

[Jeff T]

Grass-fed is healthier...
Erm, for humans, not the poor bovines.

The dilemma for me is that I find killing animals for food disgusting, but my histamine and gluten intolerances pretty much force me to eat more meat than carbs.
I am keeping a keen eye on "test tube meat", which is getting closer to commercial viability.
Ideally, all farming of animals for food will become "extinct" before I fall off the perch.
That would garner me a great deal of satisfaction.

Lab-grown meat: It's growing legs locally

Let's not mince words. Cultivated meat is making a global push with its potential to eliminate the downsides of current meat consumption.

independentaustralia.net

While I find eating meat from animals that have been killed repugnant, I do love the taste. The other issue is that as a diabetic, animal protein is what slows down carbohydrate digestion, keeping the blood sugar from spiking much higher.
It would be great to do away from such 'backwards' behaviour with selectively slaughtering animals, BUT:
What would happen to those species' populations?
After WW1, millions of war horses were shot or slaughtered- not needed any more. The civilian side went slower, but perhaps similar? The horse rebounded a little bit with being a hobby or a pet, but cattle or sheep? Hopefully not extinction.

Anyways, back to meat pies.........

 

[Jonn]

Hopefully not extinction.

Extinction is a kindness.

 

[Georgia Galaxy]

Australians know what's up.

Sure do 8) 8) I reckon we have some of the yummiest food and most interesting things in the world here! If you haven't been, you should come visit.

 

[Georgia Galaxy]

"Football, meat pies, kangaroos, and Holden cars."

LMAO X,DD Uh... We call it "soccer" here instead of football, and we LOVE cricket. Cricket is a defining sport over here. We also love rugby. As a kid I could "football" and "soccer" confused.

 

[Georgia Galaxy]

I couldn't resist, another Aussie here and pies are my favourite food. Here if you ask for a pie with no other adjective what you'll get is ground beef. It's a very common fast food here, especially for people working in industrial situations. You can eat a pie one handed while still working. One quick snack gives 1000 calories and a hefty dose of protein.

With herbs and spices it's best to keep it simple, some mixed herbs and black pepper is usually enough. Cook the meat in it's own gravy first, this lets you have more control over how thick or runny the contents of your pie will be. You don't want it too dry but you don't want boiling gravy dripping on you when you try to eat either.

I haven't done it for a while now but I like making pies. I make my own stiff shortcrust pastry for the bottom of the pie and use bought puff pastry for the top. Shortcrust pastry is easy:

2 cups of flour
2 oz of butter (preferably real butter from a moo cow)
2/3 cup of water.

Rub the butter and flour together first. Literally get you fingers in there and rub them together, keep going until there's no more lumps, doesn't take long. Then add the water, I use a kitchen fork to mix until it starts getting too thick then I get my hands in there again. You want the consistency of plasticine or play dough, so if it's too dry add a little more water or if it's too wet add a little more flour.

Once you're happy with the consistency dust a little flour on the kitchen bench top and plop you dough on there. Knead the dough by picking up the edges of it and pushing them in to the middle repeatedly. What you're doing here is stretching the flour particles out in to long strands to give your pastry a chewier texture, and at the same time you're trapping lots of little air bubbles inside the dough so that it rises and becomes lighter and fluffier. When the texture of the outside of the dough starts to look pebbly or lumpy and you notice that it's air bubbles near the surface then you're done.

I use a wine bottle as a rolling pin. In tropical climates a lot of people keep a wine bottle full of water in the freezer for this purpose, keeping your pastry cold until it's time to cook it gives better results. Just roll your pastry out a little bit at first, then dust the top with a little flour, flip it over and dust that side too, then roll it out some more. Keep repeating until it's stretched out enough to cover your pie dish with plenty of room to spare, it will shrink a little again when you pick it up to put it in the dish.

Shortcrust pastry in the bottom of the dish, tip the meat and gravy mix in to it. Put a sheet of bought puff pastry over the top and use a butter knife to trim all the excess pastry from the sides of the dish. Use a kitchen fork to press a pattern in to the edges of the pastry, this is to make the two pastries weld together as one piece. Poke a few holes in the top to let steam out then put it in a hot oven for 35 to 45 minutes, when the pastry on top looks good it's done.

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When I was growing up all the commercially available pies were made with proper French puff pastry and they were really nice, these days they're not easy to find. I'm lucky enough to live in a city that has one such bakery:

Vilis Family Bakery - Pies, Pasties and Cakes | Vilis

Vili’s Family Bakery bakes authentic pies, pasties and many mouth-watering sweets for distribution across Australia and globally around the world.

www.vilis.com

Thanks for the food tip fellow Aussie

 

[All-Rounder]

Sure do 8) 8) I reckon we have some of the yummiest food and most interesting things in the world here! If you haven't been, you should come visit.

I'd like to go there when it gets cool here, in the winter you guys have summer there. I'm very sensitive to cold.

I'm gonna stay away from the bush most of the time, though, because it has creatures never seen here, boxing kangoroos and ticks. Apparently at the ocean side there are ticks too.

My city's forest side has been overtaken by ticks this year like never before. Scary. Tons crawled on us and 2 laced on to my friend and she had to extract them.

 

[Mary Terry]

Aha. Well, to my eyes that looks far more like a pasty and not one of our pot pies.

In Rick Steves' tv show that's exactly how they were to be eaten. -One handed.

The pasty crust seems IMO much more appetizing compared to one of our pot pies. The one you posted looks like a tasty pasty!

We have pot pies (which can contain any kind of meat and vegetables or even seafood like a lobster pot pie) and we have hand pies which look like the photo. Hand pies can be savory or sweet, they're portable and eatable with one hand.

One of our family favorites is Beef and Cheddar Hand Pies:

1 lb ground beef
1 TBS minced garlic (2 cloves)
1 large onion, halved and thinly sliced (3 cups)
2 TBS Worcestershire sauce
2 tsp Dijon mustard
Kosher salt and black pepper, to taste
2 cups grated sharp cheddar (or pepper jack cheese)
1 sheet frozen puff pastry, thawed
all purpose flour, for dusting
1 large egg, lightly beaten

Heat skillet on medium high
Add beef, onion and garlic, stirring occasionally until starting to brown, about 7 minutes
Stir in Worcestershire and Dijon, season with S & P, remove from heat and let cool completely.
Stir in cheese

Preheat oven to 425 degrees.
Roll out pastry on a lightly floured surface to a 14-inch square. Cut into four 7-inch squares.
Place a quarter of meat mixture on each square, brush edges of each square with egg, then fold one corner of each pie over, forming a triangle. Press edges to seal.

Place pies on parchment lined baking sheet
Brush tops with more egg. I like to sprinkle coarse salt and black pepper on the tops.
Cut 2 vents in each top

Freeze the pies for 10 minutes
Bake until golden brown, about 20 minutes

They taste like juicy cheeseburgers! And I want one for dinner tonight!

 

[Mary Terry]

Just for those who might not know, and for @All-Rounder who might want to have a crack at making them:

Pasties were the traditional food of English coal miners. It was what their wives made them for lunch, meat and vegetables wrapped in a pastry container, They could crack it open and eat the clean meat and vegetables inside and discard the pastry casing because by the time they got to eat it would be covered in coal dust.

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The state of West Virginia has its own traditional version of pasties, eaten by the coal miners there.

 

[Mary Terry]

@Outdated - An interesting factoid about coal miners' contribution to the culinary arts: the first record of loaves of bread being cut on the diagonal comes from northern Italy. The miners worked in narrow tunnels and needed to carry their day's food with them in a manner that wouldn't be bulky. So, they cut the bread loaves diagonally to increase the surface area to make long, flat sandwiches.