British Pie Week 2022 🥧

[lewys-gp]

3.14159265359... No, not that type of pie*! It's British Pie Week** (7-13th March).

I'm talking about the good stuff. That one-syllable, baked dish of pastry and filling. Flaky, crispy, soft, doughy, sweet, savoury, thick, thin. Apples and pears; steaky and kidney. Beef and gravy; chicken and mushroom. Red sauce, brown sauce(!?) and good ol' gravy. I could go on, but alas, we must move on.

I love a good pie. Not sure if you could tell. So, I had to make sure we celebrated this week properly on the community. And how do we do that? Well, I will only ask the members to do one thing:

Simply, treat yourself to a pie this week 🥧

Make it. Bake it. Cut corners with puff pastry (the only way, in my opinion). Or, get a posh one from a local restaurant. I'd probably be happiest to hear about the store-bought pies, covered in instant gravy (you know the brand I'm thinking of). 

So, please, do that. Enjoy a pie. And let us know how you get on. Even share a photo if you will 📸.

For me, it's a toss-up between my mother's corned beef pie and stewed steak tin gravy, or, the humble apple pie. Maybe, I'll have to make both. Expect photos and reviews at some point this week in the comments below.

I hope you manage to participate! Looking forward to hearing about your favourites and seeing some photos. And sorry if you don't like pie. But, I'll leave you with the beginning of an old famous rhyme...

Sing a song of sixpence,
A pocket full of rye,
Four and twenty blackbirds
Baked in a pie.

When the pie was opened
The birds began to sing—
Wasn't that a dainty dish
To set before the king?

*Search "pi" on Google and you can play a game with the 𝛑 symbol calculator.

**Invented by the Egyptians, apparently! Read a short(crust) history of pies.

[Mi-Amigo]

Great thread @lewys-gp 

My favourite fruit pie has to be blackberry and apple with lashings of custard...

All I`ve got to do is remember to put that on my shopping list for carer on Friday and will be welcome addition after my chip supper on Friday. Roll on the end of the week 😀

[gmarkj]

Steak and ale is my favorite, closely followed by Cottage!

[lewys-gp]

Thank you, @Mi-Amigo! It's funny you mentioned custard as @RafaC said the same earlier, which raises the grand old question:

Custard, cream or ice cream 😆? Warm custard every time.

Lovely shouts, @gmarkj! When I was writing this earlier, my cravings for a pie was going through the roof 🤣.

[RafaC]

@lewys-gp great topic! I love some apple pie myself, which I think I prefer with whipped cream. Having said that, I'm a huge custard fan so I'm kinda torn between the two.

Also, my grandma used to make me apple strudels on the weekends and that I really enjoy with vanilla ice cream. The great debate indeed.

[Cleoriff]

@lewys-gp 
My favourite savoury pie is Steak and Mushroom with lashings of gravy. When I made them myself it was a bit of a performance.  I had to do them individually as one son hates mushrooms and the other has a dislike of onions. So after cooking the steak and mushroom I had to remove those things when making the pies. To make sure it was correct I would put a pastry A on one and a S on the other. It became ridiculous and time consuming so I went for shop bought in the end 😂

My other favourite is Apple pie. I enjoy it with cream or custard.

Sorry no photo's though. Nowadays I find little time for baking, particularly when you can buy delicious pies from the bakery.

[lewys-gp]

Amazing, @Cleoriff 😅. My mother would make a bolognese and have to hand-blend the sauce slightly, so the onions weren't too noticeable for my brother 😂. 

If you manage to pop down the bakery this week, please do share a photo.

[lewys-gp]

The day has come! I have remade my mother's corned beef pie 🥧!

I have betrayed my weekday veganism for this (will do tomorrow instead). Very happy with the result, even though it'll never be as good as my mother's. A rough recipe below follows:

Corned beef pie

• Whole tin of corned beef
• One large onion
• Half a saucepan of potatoes
• Two rolls of shortcrust pastry
• Salt
• Pepper
• Dried mixed herbs
• One beaten egg
• Dash of milk

1. Peel and chop potatoes and boil with chopped onion for 15-20 minutes in salted water (don't overboil, just when potatoes are tender)
2. Take your pastry out and roll out ready
   1. Roll one sheet on your baking tray, creating the base and walls
3. Drain your potatoes and onion (keep some of the water though), then return to the pot with the chopped corned beef
   1. Mash these together, using some of the water to aid mashing, adding salt, pepper and herbs
4. Put the mixture in the pastry case
5. Brush edges of the pastry with egg before placing the other sheet on top
   1. Brush more egg to assist the sealing of the two pastry sheets
6. Pinch the pastry to seal and brush the lid with more egg to help when baking
7. Add a small slit in the lid to allow air to escape and bake in a hot oven for 20-30 minutes! Keep an eye on it, and make sure the base pastry cooks through

Stewed steak gravy

• Tin of stewed steak
• One beef oxo cube
• Hot water

1. Heat the stewed steak in a saucepan
2. Crumble the oxo cube into a jug and add hot water to dissolve
3. Add the liquid to the stewed steak and heat gently and stir
   1. Make the gravy as thick or as liquidy as you like

Peas are optional. So is the gravy, really! This is great with some red or brown sauce.

Voilà! Hope you like it 😃🥧.

[Cleoriff]

@lewys-gp 

My Mum was a Geordie and corned beef pie was a favourite when I was growing up. She would serve it with mash and peas, Her gravy was wonderful.

Just on the topic of corned beef, another dish she made frequently was called Panacklety. 😂

To feed 4 it required

2 tins of corned beef (stored in the fridge for 2hrs beforehand). This made it easy to slice when taken out of the tin

4 Large potatoes (peeled and sliced)

1 Large onion (peeled and sliced)

2 oxo cubes

Bisto gravy powder

Cornflower

Salt and paper

Using a deep ovenproof dish start with layering potatoes on the bottom, then layers of corned beef, then a layer of sliced onion. Repeat until all layers are complete. Finish the top with a layer of potatoes.

Salt and pepper.

Make the gravy with the oxo cubes, bisto powder and cornflower (for thickening). Mix with a small amount of cold water, then add boiling water to the mixture and stir quickly.

Pour the gravy mix into the serving dish over the potatoes etc,

Fill until its just below the top layer of potatoes. You can cheat by using Bisto gravy granules for the gravy mix.

Cover and put into a  preheated oven 170c for 60 minutes. Take the cover off and leave to cook for a further 30 mins to crisp up the top layer of potatoes.

Mum served it with cabbage and I carried on that tradition.

One meal that all 4 of us loved. Cheap, nutritious and tasty.

[lewys-gp]

Sounds like Heaven, @Cleoriff. Will definitely make a note and make it in the near future, thank you 🙌.