Australian meat pie

Ingredients

• Beef — finely diced or minced800 g
• Onion2
• Beef stock500 ml
• Flour3 tbsp
• Worcestershire sauce2 tbsp
• Tomato paste2 tbsp
• Shortcrust pastry500 g
• Puff pastry400 g
• Egg — for glazing1
• Tomato sauce — to serve100 ml
• Vegetable oil40 ml
• Salt and pepperto taste

Salt and spices grow more slowly than the rest: doubling a dish does not double the pepper.

Weight converts to ounces and volume to cups. Grams of flour are not turned into cups, because that depends on how tightly it is packed.

Method

1. 1

   Brown the beef in batches so it does not release its juices, and set it aside.

   15 min

2. 2

   Fry the onion until soft, stir in the flour and cook it two minutes.

   8 min

3. 3

   Return the meat, add the stock, Worcestershire sauce and tomato paste and stew forty minutes, until thick.

   45 min

4. 4

   Cool the filling completely, ideally in the fridge.

   30 min

5. 5

   Line the tins with shortcrust, trim the edges and fill them with the cold filling.

   20 min

6. 6

   Cover with rounds of puff pastry, seal the edges and cut a vent in the middle.

   12 min

7. 7

   Glaze with egg and bake at 200 °C for twenty-five minutes, to a deep golden lid.

   28 min

About the dish

Base and lid use different pastries: shortcrust holds the filling without going soggy, puff gives the rise. One pastry for both is a common mistake.

The filling is chilled cold before assembly. Warm, it melts the butter in the pastry and the base bakes as dense as cardboard.

They are eaten by hand, standing, with an obligatory stripe of tomato sauce across the lid. In Australia this is the street food — around 270 million pies a year.

Worth knowing

• — The filling has to be very thick — a spoon should stand in it. A loose one soaks the base and the pie falls apart in the hand.
• — The vent is not optional. Without it steam domes the lid and bursts the seam.
• — The pies freeze well unbaked. Shape them, freeze them and bake from frozen with ten minutes added.

Nutrition

Per serving at the base yield, calculated from the ingredients rather than measured in a lab.

Calories

720 kcal

Protein

32 g

Fat

42 g

Carbs

54 g

More from Australia

• Lamingtons — Cubes of sponge dipped in chocolate icing and rolled in desiccated coconut.