British Pie Week: Mince and Onion Pie In Pictures

For those of you who are unaware, this week has been British Pie Week! An event founded by Jus-Rol that celebrates pies in all their delicious, British glory.
Meat filled pies have long been a staple of British cuisine and are still a family favourite up and down the country, but as with all things, the people were always looking for a quicker way of getting one on the table. That's where Jus-Rol came in. They started in 1954, selling 'just-roll' puff pastry to customers, omitting the time-consuming job of having to make your own.
Living in The Netherlands is fun but I do get a touch homesick sometimes, one of the best things that helps me with that is rustling up some good hearty food that tastes like home. When I read about Pie Week online I got the biggest craving and knew I had to make a good, old-fashioned mince and onion pie for dinner. So I did!

I used these recipes for basic guidance (with the filling and pastry respectively), but when I'm comfortable enough with a recipe I tend to tinker with it as I go so you'll notice some differences along the way.

I began with the pastry as that could chill in the fridge while I was getting everything else done.

For this part I followed this recipe, I didn't want to risk ruining the pie with a bad crust. I made shortcrust as I feel it fits best with a meat pie.

I weighed out the ingredients, rubbed the butter into the flour, brought it together with a splash of water, then wrapped it in cling film and popped it in the fridge. At this point I will say that this was only just enough pastry to cover the top of my pie dish, I did use a fairly large one but only made a top crust, so if in doubt, double it! 

With that out of the way, I moved on to the filling. This part's my favourite as you can play around and essentially do whatever you fancy! I always like to use onion, carrot and celery (the holy trinity of veg) when making any kind of meaty sauce or stock, they give the perfect savoury base for anything. We were sadly out of big onions so I had to make do with a handful of baby onions, which were a bugger to peel and chop. I also added a clove of garlic to this as an afterthought. 

I started by finely dicing the veg then sweating them gently in a pan on a low heat. If you salt them at this point it helps the water come out of the veg and prevents caramelization. If you cover them with a lid and stir every now and then it will also keep more moisture in. I would normally have used more veg than this but this was all the celery that was left and I got fed up of the onions. 

This is what they looked like after about 10 minutes, at which point I thought they were good enough.

I then put in the minced garlic, followed by the meat, which I worked to a fine crumb and browned. I then added a couple of teaspoons of flour, worked it through the meat until there was none visible and then put in a generous teaspoon of tomato paste. Then in went a splash of beer (just a pilsner that I was drinking at the time) and 500ml of beef stock. Whilst my meat was browning I had chopped up some mushrooms and potatoes in small cubes, these went in and the whole thing simmered away happily for 20 minutes to give the potatoes time to cook. Whilst this simmers, taste it for seasoning. I added a generous amount of pepper and a tiny pinch of cayenne (a trick borrowed from Chef John of Food Wishes). 

When it was all good to go and the oven was preheated to 200 celsius, I got out my pastry and rolled it out slightly larger than the dish (with a little difficulty).  This was the point that I wished I had made more pastry, I enjoy a slightly thicker crust that is crisp and flaky on top, soft and gravy soaked underneath, and whilst this was still tasty it was a little thin. 

I then stirred my peas through the filling, allowing them to stay fresher and not get overcooked, and put the whole lot in to the dish.

On with the pastry and a quick wash of egg! Put a couple of holes in the middle of the pie to allow any steam to escape during cooking, otherwise you will get big bubbles and potentially soggy bits. The egg wash is purely for aesthetic reasons I think, it gives a gorgeous, shiny, golden coating.

25 minutes later, Taa daa!

We ate ours with chips (the others had eggs on theirs too!) and it was glorious! In fact I was so caught up in stuffing my face that I forgot to take a picture of it all served up on a plate (hence this picture of the lonely piece that was devoured for seconds shortly after I took it). This fed 5 of us to stuffed-ness, with 3 sharing the last piece for seconds, would have fed 6 with good portions. 

Those of you who are Brits will probably appreciate how good a pie can truly be, they are the ultimate comfort food, and for those of you who are not, give this 'recipe' a go (or come up with your own) and you will soon find out what the fuss is about!

If Mince and Onion is not your thing, how about:
Chicken and Vegetable
Steak and Ale
Homity Pie (potatoes, onion, leek and cheese)
Sausage and Apple