Meat Pie

Meat Pie  (Spicy Beef Pasty)

Ingredients

Short Crust Pastry
500 gm plain flour; sieved into a large bowl
1/2 tspn tumeric
salt to taste
250 gm butter; cut into cubes
125 mls (half cup) chilled water

Filling
500 gm minced lean beef
4-6 cloves garlic; minced
2 inch ginger; grated
2-3 chillies; minced fine
1 tspn tomato puree
1 tspn Lea and Perrin's Worchester sauce
1 tspn HP sauce
1 tspn Dijon mustard
salt to taste
1/2 tspn garam masala
2 medium onions
3 spring onions
2 tblspn chopped coriander
1 tbspn chopped mint

1 beaten egg for glazing



Method
Pastry
1.Place the flour, tumeric salt and butter in large bowl.
2. Use your finger tips to rub the butter into flour so that you get a fine breadcrumb like mixture
3. Add the cold water slowly mix to bind into dough-like consistancy
4. Wrap in cling-film and place in the fridge for at least 20 minutes

Filling
1. Dry cook the minced beef with garlic, ginger, chillies and salt, until all the liquid evaporates, break the lumps if they form.
2. Add Worcestershire, HP and tomato sauce, together with mustard and tomato puree. Stir and cook for 5 minutes.
3. Remove from heat and add garam masala, onions. When cool add the mint and coriander.

Pies
Preheat the oven at 220
1. Remove pastry from the fridge, and divide into 20 pieces.
2. Roll into a 3 inch circle, place the filling in the centre, wet half the edge with water and fold.
3 Mark the edge with a fork and place on a greased oven tray.
4.Repeat until you have made 20. Prick each pastry with a fork and brush with beaten egg
5. Place in the oven and bake for 15 minutes

Empanadas

Empanada recipe makes a pastry that is stuffed usually with chicken or beef. It originates from Spain, Portugal, Latin America and the Philippines.
What's nice about this empanada recipe is that you can get creative with the stuffing. I am showing you an example of ground beef stuffing but you can essentially create your own using either chicken or if you're vegetarian, some eggs and tofu.

The empanada's can either be deep fried or baked. In this recipe I am baking. If you want to deep fry, set the deep fryer for 375 F and cook each side of for 2 min.

Total time: 1 h 15 min
Ingredients (2 servings):
Empanada shell:
2 cups all purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup cold water
1 egg
2 teaspoon vinegar
2 tablespoons margarine
Filling:
ground beef (extra lean, about 150 g)
1/2 potato
1/8 onion
1 clove garlic
1/2 teaspoon pepper
1/2 tablespoon cajun spice
3/4 to 1 cup mozzarella cheese

---

Method:
Part 1 (10 min)
Add the margarine in a large bowl and microwave it for 30 seconds so it becomes soft (1). To that same bowl, beat the egg, salt, vinegar and water together (2). Add the flour and mix well (3). Refrigerate for 30 min.

Part 2 (30 min)
In the meantime, we're going to make the filling. Defrost the ground beef (1). Pour some olive oil in a frying pan (2). Finely chop the onions, garlic and peeled potato (3). Once the beef is done defrosting, spread it out on the frying pan (4) and add the potatoes, pepper and cajun spice (5). Turn on the medium heat (6) and cook it for 10 min (7). When the beef is well cooked, add in the onions and garlic and cook for 5 min (8). Grate the cheese and place it in a small bowl (9).

Part 3 (35 min)
Preheat the oven to 375 F (1). Roll the dough into 1/8 inch thick layer (2). Cut out a large circle using either a cookie cutter or put a clean plate on the dough (3) and cut out a circle with a knife (4). Remove the excess dough from the cut out circle. Place the filling, and the cheese in the center (5). Carefully fold over the circle with contents into a semicircle (6). Crimp down the edges with a fork (7). Put the empanada's on a baking tray (8). Bake in oven for 20 min (9).

Serve.