HOT WATER CRUST RAISED PIE

BRITISH PIE WEEK

FRENCH PIE

WoW...What A Show Stopper...

I Love Love Love this pie tin! 

I love making this old fashioned Hot Water Crust French pie, I am not as traditional these days as I was when I first started making this pie in this fluted French tin for my market stall (search bar has recipe) which would be a layered game pie with a brandy chicken liver pate force meat, but I found I rarely got to use this tin.  So nowadays I enjoy using this tin for special pie moments like Christmas Day Left Over Pie.  I do always use my hot water crust with home rendered crackling lard the best ever melt in the mouth pastry

Prep Time 20 mins / Cooking Time 50 minutes

Ingredients

(serves 4-6)

Hot Water Crust Pastry

450g plain flour

1 egg beaten

220g lard

10g salt

180ml hot water

1 egg beaten for egg wash

Pie Filling Ingredients

(this can be any fillings you want)

Left over turkey meat

Left over roast potatoes

Left over gravy

Left over cranberries

Left over stuffing

Sea salt and black pepper

Method

First make the hot water crust, place the water and lard in a saucepan and bring to a simmer, in a bowl place the flour and salt and cut in the beaten egg, pour over the hot lard and bring together with a wooden spoon and as soon as you can handle the dough knead for a couple of seconds and form in to a ball.  

Pre heat your oven to 180 degrees C, grease the sides of your pie tin.  cut off on third of the pastry and leave to one side, this is for the pie lid.  Roughly roll out the remaining pastry to about an inch thick and fold in to the tin to line, press the soft pliable pastry in to all the ribs of the tin and up the sides, trim off any excess that is hanging over the top of the pie tin.

For the pie lid, roll out the remaining pastry and place the tin on the pastry, cut around the pie dish.  If you have any left over pastry cut out some decorative leaves or hearts for the top.

Now to layer, I went with cranberries first followed by turkey, stuffing, gravy, repeated that again and then finished off with crushed roast potatoes and Brussels sprouts, if I had more cranberries I would have finished off with a final layer.  Egg wash the top of the pasty and place the pie lid on the pie, crimp the edges and decorate the top with leaves, skewer a small hole in the centre of the pie.

Brush the pie with egg wash and place in the oven to cook for around 35-45 minutes until golden and crisp.  Leave to cool for 10 minutes before removing from the tin.  The pie is ready to serve, but I like to egg wash the sides and pop back in the oven for 10 minutes to set the glaze and then serve.

Serve with creamy buttery mashed potatoes and fresh sprouts and any left over gravy.