Meat Pies

Meat Pie Filling.  

1/2 cup olive oil

1 1/2 lbs lean ground beef

1 1/2 lbs lean ground turkey

6 bacon slices - thick and peppered - cut into 1 inch pieces  

1 can condensed cream of Mushroom soup with garlic

1 can condensed French onion soup

2 cups chopped carrots

1 can peas

2 cups of chopped asparagus

1 can diced Italian tomatoes

2 teaspoons salt

1 teaspoon pepper

2 tablespoons Worcestershire Sauce

2 teaspoons dried basil

1 teaspoon garlic powder

Brown bacon in a large frying pan with olive oil.

Add beef and brown.

Add turkey and brown.

Add rest of ingredients, stir well and bake for an hour at 250. Leave lid off to reduce water content and thicken the mixture. If there is too much liquid in mixture, add two tablespoons of potato flakes.

This should make at least 8 small (mini) pies or two large meat pies. This recipe was designed to taste great and be more healthy than my usual meat pie recipes.

I found the following mini pie maker the best and fastest way to make a wide range of meat and fruit pies. The pie maker is typically available for about 80 US dollars online through folks like Amazon.

Breville BPI640XL Personal Pie Maker

• Four pie molds with a 4-inch diameter
• Edge crimper seals the pie with decorative trim
• Locking latch
• Easy clean non-stick surface
• Included accessories: pastry cutter and pastry press

I do not usually endorse cooking appliances, however this brand has an Australian history.

Breville is a maker of small kitchen appliances, founded in Sydney, Australia, in 1932. They created the original sandwich toaster. The product was a huge success upon its launch in Australia in 1974, selling 400,000 units in its first year and making the Breville brand a household name in Australia. Soon after, the Breville toasted sandwich maker was launched in New Zealand and Great Britain where it met with similar success. The name became synonymous with such devices – to the point where “Breville” has become the generic word for a sandwich toaster, and often the toasted sandwich itself, in much the same way that “Hoover” is associated with the vacuum cleaner.

If you do not have this Breville pie maker you would bake the typical 9 inch pie at 400 degrees for about 40 minutes.  Given that small pies are a very portable food item and often spend considerable time out of a refrigerator before eaten, make sure the pie mixture is well cooked before it becomes a part of the pie.

For related posts see:

a. The Pie Iron Meat Pie - Dec. 24 2010.
b. Cornish Pasties - Oct. 31 2010.

My first experience in the making of meat pies was helping Grandma Hofmeister in her wood cooking stove kitchen in outback Queensland. The hand turned meat grinder was set up on the kitchen table and grandma collected all the beef related leftovers and I operated the grinder to generate the "minced" beef that went into the meat pie mixture. The house had a wood stove, no electricity and no indoor plumbing.

My thanks to my friend Chad for helping in the field testing of recipes. Chad also supplied the photo of the pie and peas.