This meat pie was inspired by an Aussie meat pie posted on a FB group I belong to.
My version has a ground beef, mushroom and carrot filling with a pastry made with the recipe on the Tenderflake lard box but I used 450 gm of AP flour to 150 gm lard, 100 gm unsalted butter and 50 gm of margarine for ... reasons. I made 4 x 6 inch diameter pies with the pastry and still have 300 gm of leftover pastry. Very tasty for a first attempt.
I ate it with ketchup as a dip though I'd like to try it with mashed potatoes with beef gravy poured over both the potatoes and the pie.
Aussie Meat Pie - makes four 6 inch diameter pies
favourite pastry crust recipe (enough to make 2 double crust pies)
1 tbsp vegetable oil
454 gm mushrooms, thickly sliced and halved
500 gm ground beef
1 cup carrots, diced
1 cup vegetable stock (didn't have any beef stock), divided
2 tsp Worchestershire sauce
1/4 cup Marcella Hazan's marinara sauce *
1 tbsp ketchup *
3 tbsp all purpose flour
salt and pepper to taste
* (instead of one small onion, diced and 1/4 cup tomato sauce)
In a large frying pan, fry the mushrooms in the oil over medium high heat until browned. Transfer to a separate bowl and set aside.
In the same frying pan fry the ground beef, drain off extra fat. Add the mushrooms, carrots, 3/4 cup of stock, Worchestershire sauce, marinara sauce and ketchup. Bring to boil, cover and simmer for 15 min.
Whisk together the remaining 1/4 cup of stock with the flour, pour into the frying pan, stir to mix, cover and cook for an additional 5 minutes. Stir a couple of times so that the thickened mixture doesn't stick. Taste and season to taste (1/4 tsp salt and 1/4 tsp pepper).
Remove from the heat and let cool to room temperature.
Roll out pastry and divide into 4 bases and 4 tops.
Fill bases, brush edge with egg wash, put the top on, seal and brush the top with egg wash.
Bake in oven preheated to 400 deg F for 20 min, turn the heat down to 350 deg and continue baking for another 30-40 until the top is nicely browned.
Remove pies to a cooling rack. Let cool for 1 hr and then serve warm.