Post-Christmas Pie

Post-Christmas Pie Recipe

Got your family coming round for New Year’s Day and still got leftovers to use up? Then try our post-Christmas pie recipe from the Men's Pie Manual...

Ingredients

For the filling

Around 500g leftover turkey meat shredded
500g mixed game birds (pheasant breasts, pigeon breasts are available from good butchers during the winter months, duck is also readily available in supermarkets)
teaspoon each of the following spices, ground: mace, cinnamon, allspice berries, grated nutmeg, cloves (actually Idon’t like cloves, so I tend to leave them out)
300g of sausage meat
200ml of turkey stock made with the wings and carcass 

For the pastry

It’s hot-water crust, fellas, and lots of it.

320ml boiling water
600g plain flour
600g strong flour
450g lard
1 tablespoon of salt
1 tablespoon of sugar

Making the pastry

1 Sieve the flour into a big glass or ceramic bowl and add the sugar and salt. Have a butter knife standing by.
2 Melt the lard in a saucepan on a low heat – you don’t want to overheat it, just render it back into a liquid. If you start to see tiny bubbles, stop, and let it cool down. Carefully pour the boiled water from the kettle into the lard and gently stir.
3 Quickly pour this into the bowl containing the flour. Use your knife to mix the dough together, as it’ll be way too hot to do it with your hands. 
4 When it’s cooled to a warm, squidgy texture get your hands in there and begin to work it hard. Don’t worry, it can take a bit of a knockabout.
5 Transfer to your bench and kneed for five minutes.
6 Roll out with a rolling pin and remove a quarter for your lid.
7 Gently place the remainder in the pie tin and push to ensure a snug fit.
8 Trim off the excess.
9 Place on your lid and crimp to ensure a good seal.

Next let's take a look at a 'traditional' game bird pie...
Make a good standing crust, let the wall and bottom be very thick; bone a turkey, a goose, a fowl, a partridge, and a pigeon, season them all very well, take half an ounce of mace, half an ounce of nutmegs, a quarter of an ounce of cloves, and half an ounce of black-pepper, all beat fine together, two large spoonfuls of salt, and then mix them together.

Open the fowls all down the back, and bone them; first the pigeon, then the partridge; cover them;  then the fowl, then the goose, and then the turkey, which must be large; season them all well first, and lay them in the crust, so as it will look only like a whole turkey; then have a hare ready cased, and wiped with a clean cloth. Cut it to pieces, that is, joint it; season it, and lay it as close as you can on one side; on the other side woodcocks, moor game, and what sort of wild fowl you can get.

Season them well, and lay them close; put at least four pounds of butter into the pie, then lay on your lid, which must be a very thick one, and let it be well baked. It must have a very hot oven, and will take at least four hours. This crust will take a bushel of flour.’Now, that requires so many animals you’ll probably get a visit from the RSPB – there’s over eight different species in that. It isn’t so much a pie as a pastry tomb for winter birds.

Then there’s the pastry – a bushel of flour is around 36kg. What must it have been like to not only afford one, but to present it to your friends, neighbours and household? How did they even cut it? They must have used a sword. Anyway, let’s make a more sensible version, as some of the flavourings are excellent.

Now it’s time to talk turkey... 
We forget that turkey, too, is a game bird. Buying a good rare-breed naturally raised turkey is critical. It’ll have the flavour, the texture and the fat covering. Also, you don’t have to bone out a whole one (that would take ages). Instead think of this as a deluxe version of a turkey pie. You want to break out your biggest deep-sided, spring-loaded cake tin for this. I’m serious, this is the big one.

Method

1 Strip the meat from the turkey and make the stock from the carcass.

2 When the stock is ready, pass through a sieve to remove the bones and vegetables and pour about 200ml into a clean pan. Put the rest in the freezer for something else.

3 Poach the game meat in this stock for about 15 minutes until tender and cooked (this will help keep them moist).

4 Remove and leave to cool. Keep the stock.

5 Make your pastry (see above) and, working quickly, roll out and line your cake tin, saving enough to make the lid. Make sure it’s well into the corners.

6 Then, in a bowl, mix the sausage meat with the cooked turkey and game meat and the spices. If it looks a little dry, add a spoon or two of the stock.

7 Fill the case with the filling and brush the edge with water.

8 Roll out your lid and place it on top. Cut a small hole for the steam to escape and bake in a moderate oven (160°C) for an hour. Check the filling is cooked with a meat thermometer and leave to cool completely before cutting into big wedges.

Haynes