Christmas Holiday Food
These Gorgeous flaky hot water crust pastry pies stuffed with juicy lamb are just perfect for friends and family over the Christmas Holidays, make plenty as they go fast! This is an old fashioned recipe with one modern ingredient that elevates the sumptuous lamb filling. I am lucky enough to raise our own pork which means my home rendered crackling lard adds a whole other level of flavour to my pastry. You can do this too by asking your butcher for some pork back fat and skin, then to make your own lard, roast the fat and skin for a hour or so until all the fat has rendered down, drain off and leave to cool then refrigerate until needed.
Ingredients
(makes 10 small pies)
(2-3 per person)
Pie Filling
500g organic lean minced lamb
1 onion fine fine diced
Good pinch of Himalayan sea salt
3/4 tsp fresh ground black pepper
15ml worcestershire sauce or 1/2 tsp of umami paste
100ml lamb stock
1 beaten egg for pastry egg wash
Hot Water Crust Pastry
450g plain flour
110g lard
1 tsp Himalayan sea salt
180ml water
Place the flour and salt in a large bowl, bring the water to a gentle simmer, add the lard, once melted pour the hot lard over the flour and mix evenly with a spoon to start with and as soon as you can handle the heat finish mixing with your hands.
When making your pastry have your jam jar or pie dolly ready as you will need to work with the hot pastry. If the pastry cools to much it can crack while working with it and even though I love a rustic pie you want to keep all the meat cooking juices in.
Hand Raising The Pie Crust
You don't need a special bit of kit (pie dolly) to do this, a small tin or upside down jam jar will do the job just fine. To hand raise the pastry take a small tennis ball size of the pastry and place the mould on top of the centre of the pastry ball, push down which will squeeze the pastry out, using both hands in a cupping method squeeze the pastry up the sides of your mould using a twisting action. You can also push this pastry on the base and up the insides of a standard pie tin, if fact you can even roll out the pastry with a rolling pin, it will affect the light crispy melt in your mouth texture the more you work the pastry.
For the lid take a gold ball size of pastry and press out with the heal of your hand until thin, cut to size, repeat as many times as pies you want to make, this recipe makes 10 small just more than one mouthful pies, now your ready to make the filling.
Place the minced lamb, onion, salt, pepper, Worcestershire sauce and lamb stock in a large bowl and combine evenly, divide the lamb mixture equally between the pie cases, egg wash the rim's of the pie cases, place the pastry lid on top and crimp or press the edges together, then in the centre of each pie form a hole to allow the steam to escape, finish off with a egg wash over the top, sides and bake at 190 degrees for approx 35 minutes until the pastry is golden and crisp. I like my pies to ooze their gorgeous self made gravy out of the top of the pies and caramelise on top of the pastry while baking I feel it makes the pies more comforting and gives you a expectation of the flavour that awaits your first bite.
Leave to cool slightly if you can wait that long, these pies are best eaten straight from the oven or within four hours at room temperature, after four hours these must be refrigerated, they will keep in the fridge but you loose a bit of the flavour and pastry texture once chilled.
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