CUISINE
English Meat Pie
Irina Samarets
BSPU,
Blagoveshchensk (Russia)
Along with oatmeal, roast beef and
Yorkshire pudding, this is one of the typical
British dishes. The traditional recipe for English
meat pie originated as early as in the Middle
Ages, when any of cuisines could hardly exist
without game and meat. Meat pies were a very
popular meal at any time of the day. In the
north of the country, the cooks began to add
fat in the pastry to make stiff dough hold an
upright shape. And they also began to seal the
pies with thick lids, which helped the baking to
remain hot for many hours later. This medieval
dish was called a box or a basket. And only in
1303 it came to be called a "pie". Such meat
pies became one of the popular dishes that
everyone loved, because the lid on the pie
allowed to preserve food during the long
winter months, which was convenient during
the long military and sea campaigns.
Ingredients
1. 60 g - lard
2. 100 ml - water
3. 50 g - butter
4. 240 g - flour
5. 1 tsp. - salt (in the dough)
6. 600 g - chicken quarters (the recipe
says to add chicken fillet and bacon in half)
7. 20 pcs - dried tomatoes (better to
add optionally, dried apricots in the recipe)
8. 1 glass - chicken stock
9. 5 g - gelatin
10. 1 pc - egg
11. Salt, pepper, seasoning for chicken -
to taste
6
SUNRISE
STEP 1
We need broth to make the pie, so let's start
with it. It is necessary to pull out all the bones
from the quarters. Heat vegetable oil and
butter in a saucepan and fry the bones in it.
When the bones are fried, add half a liter of
water, peeled onion, carrots, a bit of celery and
parsley root. Bring to the boil and simmer for an
hour over low heat. Then add salt, pepper and
bay leaf. Cool it down.
STEP 2
Meat, that was made boneless, cut into small
pieces, add seasoning for chicken and salt, if
necessary.
STEP 3
Pour the water into a saucepan, put the fat,
add 1 tsp. of salt and start cooking over the
heat. Bring the mixture to the boil. Fat makes
the dough crunchy, and the oil improves its
taste.
STEP 4
Sieve the flour and add butter to bowl. Grind it
into the crumby mixture. It is recommended to
add 200 g of flour of a low gluten content and
40 g of flour of a high gluten content. Flour of a
low gluten content makes the dough crumbly,
and flour of a high gluten content helps to
develop it strong and elastic.
STEP 5
Add the boiling fat into the butter-flour mixture
and knead the dough. The best way is to quickly
stir it with the wooden spoon, so that it does
not get cool.
STEP 6
Knead the dough for a while with your hands to
make it elastic.
STEP 7
Separate the dough into 2 parts and roll it out
so that you get thin flat cakes.
STEP 8
Fill the form with the dough, pressing it down
well.
STEP 9
Make the pie lid. In the middle of the lid make a
hole. Put the base and the lid into the fridge for
40 minutes.
STEP 10
Chop the dried tomatoes into pieces and add
them into the meat. Fill the base with the
stuffing. Moisten the edges with water so that
to seal the lid better. Cover with the lid and
press down with a fork.
STEP 11
Grease the top part with the egg. Preheat the
oven to 200 degrees and bake for about 2 hours
until golden brown. Pull out of the oven and let it
cool.
STEP 12
Add a little water to gelatin to make it swell.
Strain the broth into a glass. Dissolve gelatin in a
water bath and add to the broth of a room
temperature.
STEP 13
When the cake is still warm, pour in the gelatin-
broth solution through the hole at the top. Pour
it slowly, so that the broth gets soaked in. Let
the pie cool down and put it into the fridge for a
night.
February 2019 №2