Scotch Pie Recipe

Filling 

500g lamb mince (or 450g mince and 1 medium onion, can also use beef or mutton mince) 

1 tsp mixed herbs (optional - I prefer my pie plain with no herbs or onion) 

1 tsp nutmeg (or 1/2 tsp ground mace)

4 tbsp stock or gravy 

1tsp black pepper 

Pastry 

100g lard (or vegetable equivalent)     

250g plain flour 

115ml water 

1tsp salt 

Special Equipment

 4x10cm spring form cake tins  You can also form the cases round a jar and then wrap baking paper round them, but it is a lot more tricky this way as the pastry has to have much better structural integrity. It’s quite thin and more tricky to do than for pork pies…   

Method

Make the pastry 

Heat the lard and water gently until the lard melts. Don’t boil, just heat until the lard is melted on a lowish heat.

Mix the salt in to the flour in a bowl 

Add the water/lard to the flour and mix in to a soft dough. If the dough seems too soft mix in a bit more flour, it can depend a bit on type of flour. It should be pretty soft but firm enough that you can roll it out and lift the piece in to the tin. It will get firmer as it cools also.

Take out of bowl and knead a little until smooth (not loads like bread, just a little bit)

You need to work the dough while it is reasonably warm, but it holds its heat well so no rush.  

Divide dough in to 4 pieces. 

Then take about 1/4 of each piece to be the lid.  

Butter the tins. Roll out each big piece and put it in a tin, make sure there are no holes, it should come nearly to the top of the tin. The dough is quite squishy so just smosh a bit on if you get a hole and squidge it around until it is the right shape in the tin. 

Shape each lid in to a circle that will fit inside the case, it should be a little smaller as it just sits in there. 

Put the lid on a plate and put in the fridge with the cake tins while you make the filling.  

Preheat oven to 180°C  

Add salt and pepper to the mince to taste (approx amounts in the ingredients list) also add the herbs if you want. Remember if you use gravy it will probably add a bit more salt. Add the gravy and stir. 

You can fry a little piece to make sure it is sufficiently seasoned. 

The mixture shouldn’t be sloppy, you just want the liquid to help the meat bind together.  

Put 1/4 of the filling in to each cake tin, it should not come anywhere near the top of the pie crust, probably it fills it half way.    

Cut a hole in each lid and place over the meat. Don’t seal to the sides, there should be a tiny gap all round the lid.   

Place on a tray in the oven and cook for 30-40 minutes until lightly browned.  I like mine a bit peely wally, but you can cook longer for a browner pie.

Let them cool a little before removing the cake tins.  Eat hot with chips and beans or cold with salad (or however you want!).

General Haggis Recipe (meat or vegetarian)

Filling - lamb/lamb lung and offal/Veggies 1kg (this is the cooked weight, so when using meat 1.25kg raw meat)

Fat -  200g butter (or vegan alternative) + 50g flour (cornflour if wanting gluten free) or 250g suet

Pinhead Oats (also called steel cut oats) 350g

Onion - 2 medium approx 400g

Liquid 600ml - veg or meat stock. When making veggie I used the cooking water from the lentils and some marmite, some veg stock and maybe worcester sauce. For meat ideally use the liquid you cooked the meat in

Spice  - eg

2tsp salt approx, you need to taste the mix. Salted butter or marmite will also add salt

3 tsp ground pepper (or 1tsp pepper and 2 cayenne pepper)

1 tsp ground coriander seed

1 tsp nutmeg (or mace)

1 tsp paprika

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1 tbsp vinegar (but not needed when you use olives in the veggie version)

For the vegetarian option you can use anything you fancy for the filler, but consider how much flavour lamb has, you need to add this somehow.

Popular flavour enhancers are marmite, worcester sauce or soya paste, consider the volume of liquid if you use worcester sauce.

250g black beans (cooked - I used Cassegrain tinned haricot noire with Lemon grass and combava leaves)

100g mushrooms

180g carrot (2 largish carrots)

250g cooked green lentils (125g dried lentils)

150 g cooked black lentils (75g dried)

30g peanut butter

40g olives 

Cook the lentils (reserve the liquid to use with the stock), grate the carrot, chop the mushrooms and olives small and mash the black beans

Mix everything together all these ‘filling’ ingredients

Fry the onions gently in the butter until soft not brown

Mix with the veg mixture and add the liquid, flour and pin head oats.

Add all the spices.

Mix well

Should now be sloppy but not wet.

Put in to foil trays or loaf tins and cover with foil and cook in a 140°C oven for 2 hours (or steam in a pan)

When cooked the pinhead oats will be soft and have grown a lot in size (maybe 3 or 4 times the size they started off) and the mix will no longer be sloppy, it may be lightly browned.

Let cool and can be frozen at this point. 

To reheat cook in oven at 150 for about an hour mins. I like to leave the foil off for half that time so it goes a bit crispy, but this may not be highly traditional.

Serve with mashed potato and mashed turnip - or any veg you want!

Ready to out in the trays and cook

Cooked (twice) and ready to eat.

Failed to take a pic of it on the plate as too busy scoffing :)

Soft bread rolls recipe

1 egg plus warm water to make 150g of liquid 

1 tsp active dry yeast 

250 g bread flour 

15 g sugar 

1 tsp salt 

25 g soft butter

Knead everything together for 10 mins or whatever you normally do for bread

Put in a bowl and rise until doubled in size. Approx an hour.

Divide in to 4 rolls in an oiled oven tray and let double in size again

Cook in the tray for about 20 mins until lightly browned

Just need the tiling done…

Need to finish the bit over the septic tank too so we can get rid of the hardboard…

Food food food

 Sweetpeas and runner beans

Crispy aromatic duck

Biggest cucumber I have grown! I have mixed success with cucumbers generally…

Courgettes got out of control, made some soup

Pizza with home grown and not home grown pineapple

Happy 15th Anniversary!

 

15th wedding anniversary, strange weather, but enjoyed eating outside anyway

Special champagne

Giant beef chop

With veg from a friend. Yum!

Sheep shearing time again

We are loving the head holder so we can shear them standing up (them not us - although we do think about making a bench for them to stand on one day). The sheep much prefer it this way too - it seems they didn’t read the ‘How to be a sheep’ handbook where it mentions going floppy when lying on your back…

Shearing a bit later than usual this year, partially due to the work on the house and partially because the cool wet weather has taken away the urgency…