Australia Day Meat Pies

Today, the 26th January is Australia Day. For those of you in the US it would be the equivalent of July 4th. Here is an explanation of Australia Day: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australia_day 

So for this special day I decided to make Meat Pies. Meat Pies to Australians are what Hot Dogs are to Americans...a must have at the footy. Here's another link about Aussie Meat Pies: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_meat_pie

This recipe I put together from one or two other recipes and a program TV (the channel escapes me) that had a transplanted Aussie in Portland that owns a bakery. Here's my version.

Aussie meat pies

Ingredients:

2 tbsp olive oil

2 tbsp butter

1 large brown onion, finely chopped

1kg or 2lbs ground 80/20 beef

1-cup beef stock

¼ cup ketchup

4 tbsp Worcestershire sauce

2 tsp Vegemite

salt

pepper

2 tsp or more arrowroot 

Short crust and flaky pastry

1 egg, beaten with a little milk

Method:

Heat oil in a saucepan over medium-high heat. Add beef and cook until partly browned. 

Add onion. Cook for 3 minutes or until soft.

Add stock, ketchup, salt, pepper, Worcestershire sauce and Vegemite to beef. Bring to the boil. Reduce heat to medium-low. Add enough arrowroot until the mixture is as thin or thick as you want. Simmer for 20 minutes, remove from heat and let the mixture cool. 

Now, I have to say that the pastry I use is the same as my Chicken and Leek Pie here: http://mattcancook.blogspot.com/2011/12/you-want-some-of-my-pie.html

Preheat oven to 400°F. Place a baking tray into oven. Grease 4” base pie pans.

Cut circles from flaky pastry.

Note: You can actually roll the pastry out and line the tins, then turn them upside down and trim the excess. 

Line base and sides of pans and trim pastry.

Fill with beef. Brush rims with egg wash.

Cut circles from short-crust pastry.

Place over meat. Press to seal with a fork. Brush with egg. Make a cut in the centre for steam to escape.

Place pies onto hot tray. Bake for 30 minutes or until golden.

These are traditionally served with Tomato Sauce (a blander version of Ketchup) on top. 


These are great any time particularly now in the winter months here.


As always,


Enjoy


Matt

Up-market Appetisers

Happy New Year!! Hope you all had a great Christmas and New Year!

I thought I'd make a couple of appetisers for the holidays.

For Christmas I made pate. Even if you don't like livers, I think you'll like pate. In fact some of the people that tried it said they liked it but don't like livers.

This recipe I got from my trusty Margaret Fulton Encyclopedia of Food and Cookery.

Ingredients:

8oz (250g) chicken livers
1 1/4 cups chicken stock
1/2 cup chopped onion
1 1/2oz (45g) butter
2 hard boiled eggs
salt and pepper
(more) butter, melted, to seal

First things first. Rinse off the livers then simmer in the stock for 10 minutes.

Drain, reserving the stock. Then remove the veins from the livers. There is a big one that is in the middle of the joined livers that is a must to get out.

Puree the livers with a little of the stock in a blender.

 Brown the onion lightly in the butter and blend with the liver puree and eggs to make a paste.

 Put in a small dish or 4 individual ramekins.

 

 Pour melted butter over surface to seal pate and refrigerate for several hours.

Next up are Jalapeno Poppers.

I got this recipe from one of the guy's I used to work with.

So, in honour of him, I call these Peterson's Poppers.

Ingredients:

1lb (600g) Italian pork sausage
20 jalapenos
1 block of cream cheese
3/4 cup shredded cheddar cheese

Cook the sausage in a saucepan until browned and crumble as much as you can.

Allow the sausage to cool for a few minutes, then add the cream cheese and stir until combined and melted. I cut the cream cheese up a bit to make things easier.

Allow the mixture to cool, then add the cheddar cheese and mix to combine.

Prepare your jalapenos by cutting off the stalk end and then cut them in half. Remove the seeds and veins using a teaspoon. Then, using your fingers, stuff the sausage mixture into/onto the halved jalapenos.

Cook the jalapenos in a pre-heated 350F (180C) oven for 15 minutes or until the peppers are soft.

These are really, really good. Even people that don't like hot food love these...someone even compared them to crack, they just couldn't stop eating them.

So, there you have it. The preparation for these is a bit time consuming, but very worth the effort.

Enjoy!

Matt