Meat pie

Yes, I made a meat pie. And I am VERY proud of myself. I have tried to make meat pies each Christmas for about three or four years, and each time they are revolting, or I wreck them, or it all gets too difficult and I give up. This year I succeeded. My recipe made a full-size pie, and six mini-pies, and they are FABULOUS! Crispy, flaky, oozingly flavourful and tender.
The only bad thing was when I dropped my plate of pie on the floor, before I'd even had a bite! No problem, just sliced off a new piece. This pie was so good, Lord Porkface is considering giving up his weekly pie from the bakery. Four n' Twenty ain't got nothing on me!
I looked up a few recipes and from there, created my own easy recipe for the filling. The pastry is pre-bought, frozen. Perhaps in the future I will make my own pastry but the ease of the frozen stuff is hard to give up...
Here's my recipe.

Pinky's meat pie (serves 8 with two big pies, or maybe 10-12 with mini-pies)

• 400g lean beef mince
  
• 200g pork mince
  
• 1 brown onion
  
• splash of olive oil
  
• splash of red wine
  
• 1 and a half cups beef stock (I used powdered stock mix)


• 3-4 dried bay leaves


• 1 big tablespoon tomato paste


• 1 tablespoon cornflour


• frozen puff pastry


• frozen shortcrust pastry (I used one with 25% less fat, and it tasted great)


• 1 egg

Mince the onion in the food processor. Combine the oil, meats and onion in a saucepan and brown the lot. Add the red wine and cook for a minute or so to get rid of the alcohol. And the stock, bay leaves and tomato paste. Bring it to the boil, reduce to a simmer and cook for about 40 minutes. Taste for seasoning. Blend the cornflour with a third of a cup of water, and stir into the meat mixture. Remove from the heat and keep stirring until thickened. At this point you can refrigerate the filling until the next day or whenever you want to use it, or even freeze it. Just make sure it has cooled before it goes into the pie.

To assemble, grease a pie tin or a muffin pan (make sure it has large holes). Line the bases with the shortcrust pastry and trim the excess. Bake this base piece in the oven at 200 C for about 10 minutes, or just until the pastry has started to dry. Let the bases cool for a few minutes, then spoon in the meat filling. Make it smooth and all the way to the edges. Brush the exposed pastry rim with beaten egg and then add the puff pastry lids. Push the puff pastry onto the shortcrust, trying to get rid of any holes where the mixture might seep out. You can use the trimmings to make decorative petals or letters or whatever for the pie tops if you like.

Brush the entire pie tops with beaten egg. Stab a hole in the top of the pie with a knife to let the steam out.

Bake at 200C for about half an hour, or until the puff pastry is golden brown and delicious. Let cool for two minutes before prying out of the tin. I served ours with corn cobs and tomato sauce. A crunchy green salad would have done the trick, too. Merry Christmas!