It’s been a while since we tried to decipher any brain-teasers, so perhaps it’s time to consider. As I was explaining recently, creativity has taken an interesting and unexpected turn in our household just lately, after a trip to Majorca renewed our gastronomic interest in the good old-fashioned pie. The Spanish seem to be masters of pie making and their empanadas excite all my creative and gastric juices! However, I have found over the years that pie making is by no means straightforward.
As a young ‘newly-wed’, the art of pastry making was a mystery to me. After moving in with my mother- and father-in-law for a while, ‘between houses’, I was forced to upgrade my rather scanty cooking expertise and try and rustle up a few more recipes that would hide my woeful ignorance of the culinary arts. On our arrival, anxious to impress, I had informed my mother-in-law that I would, of course, do my share of the family cooking. It was only later that I realised just what I had signed up for. So far I had a repertoire of just about enough tried and tested menus to last the week before returning to the beginning and starting again. After a while my mother-in-law started tactfully to offer me some hints. We began with pastry! What a struggle! Paddington Bear had fewer mishaps than I did when it came to pastry. It was too wet and stuck to the work surface, my hands, the rolling pin and everything else; it was too dry and fell in pieces before it reached the dish; it was too heavy and tasted like cardboard after I had rolled it out unsuccessfully a dozen times before cooking.
Strangely, one day everything just fell into place – just like Joyce said it would. I did nothing different, as far as I could see, but suddenly the mystery solved itself and although I’m not sure I can lay claim to perfection, or even to have reached mother-in-law’s high standards, I am satisfied with my efforts and so are my family. But ‘easy as pie’? I don’t think so!
Since our visits to Majorcan bakeries I have been experimenting with a few of my own variations on empanadas, inventing recipes and working out what to cook them in and how to cut out the pastry to the right size. Here are the results:
Empanadas (small savoury pies)
I discovered muffin tins make excellent pie tins. For a cutter I used a small round plastic storage box as I had nothing the right size and for the pie lids a round fluted pastry cutter. The larger rounds of pastry have to be eased gently into the muffin tins, filled with meat or vegetables and then covered with a small pastry lid, brushed with milk and baked in the oven for 20 – 25 minutes at no.6 or 200 degrees C. If they begin to bubble and the filling threatens to overflow turn the oven down a bit. The pies can be most easily removed from their tins when cool. It took some trial and error to discover this! The failed experiments still taste good even though their marks for presentation might be a little sub-standard.
Some suggestions for fillings: the amounts of ingredients can be adjusted according to personal taste – this is art not science!
Mediterranean vegetables
Chop onion, courgette, red, green and yellow peppers and aubergine and fry gently in oil. Drain off excess oil and add some chopped tinned or fresh tomatoes, salt, pepper, rosemary, thyme and marjoram and a teaspoon of tomato purée. Simmer gently for a few minutes till most of the liquid has evaporated. Leave to cool before filling the pies and covering with pastry lids.
Chicken, bacon, mushroom and onion
Put chopped bacon in a heated pan and fry gently until some of the fat from the bacon is released into the pan. Add mushrooms and onions. Remove from pan when soft and golden. Fry chicken fillet in remaining oil. Chop everything small and mix together. Make up mushroom sauce from a packet and simmer for a few minutes. Mix together with meat and vegetables. Add seasoning to taste. Allow to cool before filling the pies and covering with pastry lids.
Sausage and onion
Fill pies with sausage meat or strip skin from sausages and use this to fill pies. Chop a small amount of onion and place on top of sausage meat. Season with salt, pepper and mixed herbs. Smear with a little tomato purée. Cover pies with pastry lids.
Now my creativity is back on track – I can diverge into culinary creativity and then translate it into writing again to satisfy the readers! Wow – multi-tasking again!
As a young ‘newly-wed’, the art of pastry making was a mystery to me. After moving in with my mother- and father-in-law for a while, ‘between houses’, I was forced to upgrade my rather scanty cooking expertise and try and rustle up a few more recipes that would hide my woeful ignorance of the culinary arts. On our arrival, anxious to impress, I had informed my mother-in-law that I would, of course, do my share of the family cooking. It was only later that I realised just what I had signed up for. So far I had a repertoire of just about enough tried and tested menus to last the week before returning to the beginning and starting again. After a while my mother-in-law started tactfully to offer me some hints. We began with pastry! What a struggle! Paddington Bear had fewer mishaps than I did when it came to pastry. It was too wet and stuck to the work surface, my hands, the rolling pin and everything else; it was too dry and fell in pieces before it reached the dish; it was too heavy and tasted like cardboard after I had rolled it out unsuccessfully a dozen times before cooking.
Strangely, one day everything just fell into place – just like Joyce said it would. I did nothing different, as far as I could see, but suddenly the mystery solved itself and although I’m not sure I can lay claim to perfection, or even to have reached mother-in-law’s high standards, I am satisfied with my efforts and so are my family. But ‘easy as pie’? I don’t think so!
Since our visits to Majorcan bakeries I have been experimenting with a few of my own variations on empanadas, inventing recipes and working out what to cook them in and how to cut out the pastry to the right size. Here are the results:
Empanadas (small savoury pies)
I discovered muffin tins make excellent pie tins. For a cutter I used a small round plastic storage box as I had nothing the right size and for the pie lids a round fluted pastry cutter. The larger rounds of pastry have to be eased gently into the muffin tins, filled with meat or vegetables and then covered with a small pastry lid, brushed with milk and baked in the oven for 20 – 25 minutes at no.6 or 200 degrees C. If they begin to bubble and the filling threatens to overflow turn the oven down a bit. The pies can be most easily removed from their tins when cool. It took some trial and error to discover this! The failed experiments still taste good even though their marks for presentation might be a little sub-standard.
Some suggestions for fillings: the amounts of ingredients can be adjusted according to personal taste – this is art not science!
Mediterranean vegetables
Chop onion, courgette, red, green and yellow peppers and aubergine and fry gently in oil. Drain off excess oil and add some chopped tinned or fresh tomatoes, salt, pepper, rosemary, thyme and marjoram and a teaspoon of tomato purée. Simmer gently for a few minutes till most of the liquid has evaporated. Leave to cool before filling the pies and covering with pastry lids.
Chicken, bacon, mushroom and onion
Put chopped bacon in a heated pan and fry gently until some of the fat from the bacon is released into the pan. Add mushrooms and onions. Remove from pan when soft and golden. Fry chicken fillet in remaining oil. Chop everything small and mix together. Make up mushroom sauce from a packet and simmer for a few minutes. Mix together with meat and vegetables. Add seasoning to taste. Allow to cool before filling the pies and covering with pastry lids.
Sausage and onion
Fill pies with sausage meat or strip skin from sausages and use this to fill pies. Chop a small amount of onion and place on top of sausage meat. Season with salt, pepper and mixed herbs. Smear with a little tomato purée. Cover pies with pastry lids.
Now my creativity is back on track – I can diverge into culinary creativity and then translate it into writing again to satisfy the readers! Wow – multi-tasking again!
1 comment:
Sounds tasty! Do you think you could also make little parcels like Cornish pasties? Looking forward to trying this out...
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