PLATE PIE

I have struggled with pastry for years.So much so that I have considered myself a bread making person whose hands are too warm to make pastry successfully, but I continued to persevere and discovered that my failure was as a result of worrying too much about the amount of water I put into the mix. I never put in enough and as such my results were too dry and crumbly. Several friends pointed me in the right direction and I boldly added more water until the dough became easier to roll out and found that my efforts improved with every attempt. 

I have tried quiches, Elizabeth David's Onion Tart is amazing and my son and I love the Hairy Bikers Chicken and Ham Pie but Mike remains unconvinced. "A pie," he declared "should be cooked in a plate and be thin enough that you can pick it up in your hand and eat it." There lay a challenge and with friends coming for dinner who are pie aficionados I rose to the bait and decided to work through my cook books until I found the right recipe. My friend Pam came to the rescue and loaned me the 'Hairy Bikers Perfect Pies" by Si King and Dave Myers which has a whole chapter on plate pies. I decided I would do the Mince and Onion Pie for the men who are carnivores and try the Broccoli and Cauliflower Cheese Pie for the girls. My friends arrived and we decided we would cook together and drink beer whilst catching up in the kitchen. There is something special about drinking, chatting and cooking together with friends. My idea of heaven! The recipes called for two different types of pastry, the one for the vegetarian pie was a cheese shortcrust pastry and the meat pie an ordinary shortcrust. I like to use the food processor to make my pastry and Val kneaded it whilst I worked on the filling. I have to confess that I was a little bit worried about the vegetarian recipe which consisted of broccoli, cauliflower and sweet potato in a cheese sauce. How was that going to work out? I was also worried that the mince and onion pie may be a little bit bland and grey. Hopefully the beer would make the taste buds more receptive!

The Hairy Bikers recipes make far too much pastry and there is a lot of waste. With hindsight we should have rolled the pastry a bit thinner as the final result was a bit thick but the vegetables were delicious and tasty and the meat pie had a great flavour and texture. We served the pies up with chips (or French fries) fried in dripping and enjoyed them immensely. The vegetarian pie was excellent and I was amazed how filling they were bearing in mind that they were cooked on an enamel plate, but I have to confess that I suffered rather badly with wind for the next few days and I am not sure I would make it again as a result but it is definitely a step in the right direction and I will continue to develop my  pie making skills.