Country pie
Pastry
Ingredients:
500g plain flour
1 teaspoon salt
125g leaf lard ( or use regular lard or butter)
125g butter
2 eggs
About 50ml ice cold water
Method:
Place lard and butter in the freezer for a couple of hours.
Place flour and salt in a bowl and mix. Coarsely grate in the butter and lard. Rub to fine crumbs and make a well in the centre. Add the eggs and water to make a dough. Knead together, wrap in parchment and chill until needed.
Crowdie cheese with pickled smoked beetroot
Ingredients (Crowdie cheese):
1 litre whole milk
1 teaspoon rennet
½ teaspoon citric acid dissolved in a teaspoon water
1 teaspoon freshly cracked black pepper
50g pinhead oat meal
Method:
Heat the milk until it reaches 32oc on a thermometer.
Add the citric acid solution and stir up and down with a wooden spoon for a few seconds. Remove from heat and leave to sit for 30 minutes. Mix the rennet into the mixture and stir up and down for 10 seconds. Put it back onto the heat and bring it up to 40oc. Hold it at this temperature for 3-4 minutes. The mixture will now look lumpy. Line a sieve with muslin and spoon the curds in. Leave to drip for 15 minutes then season with salt. Use the remaining whey in the same way as you’d use buttermilk – scones, soda bread etc.
Press the cheese into a mould and chill for a couple of hours.
Toast the oatmeal in a pan over medium heat for a couple of minutes and cool. Mix in the black pepper. Remove cheese from mould and roll in the oat meal mixture.
Ingredients (Smoked beetroot):
2 large beetroots
1 tablespoon oil
Oakchips
2 shallots
200ml cider or white wine vinegar
200ml water
75g castor sugar
1 teaspoon seasalt
Method:
Scrub the beetroots clean and place on a sheet of tinfoil. Drizzle over the oil and season with salt. Gather the foil into a parcel and roast the beetroots in a 180oc oven for about an hour and a half or until soft. Cool and peel.
Line a baking tray with tin foil and scatter oakchips over the bottom. Place a rack on top. Make cylindrical shapes by pressing an apple corer into the beetroot. Place them on the rack and cover tightly with tinfoil. Place on direct high heat – preferably outside and cook until smoke appears. Cook for a minute then turn off heat and allow to cool still covered. Blend all the trimmings from the beetroot to a fine puree and season with salt and pepper.
Simmer the cider, water, sugar and salt until the sugar has dissolved. Cool. Peel and finely slice the shallots into rings. Place in a clean jar and pour over the pickling liquor. Seal and leave for a couple of days before using.
To Assemble:
Spoon and swirl the beetroot puree onto a large plate. Slice the crowdie and arrange on top. Arrange pickled beetroot around and add some of the pickled shallot rings.
Filling
Ingredients:
1kg bacon joint
1 onion, peeled and coarsely chopped
2 sticks celery, roughly chopped
Few sprigs fresh thyme
2 sweetheart cabbages
1 large leek, split washed and chopped
2 tablespoons oil
25g butter
25g plain flour
200ml hot cooking liquor from bacon
50ml cream
2 teaspoons Dijon mustard
Handful chopped parsley
Method:
Place the bacon in a pot and cover with water. Add the onion, celery and thyme and place a lid on. Either bring to boil on stove and then simmer (make sure it’s covered with liquid at all times) or place in a cast iron pot and cook in a 160oc oven until fork tender.
Remove outer leaves of cabbage and cut the rib from the middle. Bring a pot of salted water to the boil and blanch the leaves for a minute. Refresh in cold water and pat dry on kitchen paper. Line a round dish or cake tin, approximately the size you want the pie to be, with the leaves, leaving some for the top. Quarter the remaining cabbage, remove the core and shred as thinly as you can.
Heat the oil in a large frying pan until smoking hot and add the cabbage, season with salt and pepper and cook for about 3 minutes to wilt.
Heat the butter in a pan and when melted add the leeks. Cook for a minute then beat in the flour to a smooth roux. Add the hot stock and cook to a thick sauce. Add the cream and mustard and check the seasoning.
Shred the bacon and mix into the leek mixture with the cabbage. Chop the vegetables from the bacon cooking and add to the mix. Check seasoning. Spoon into the cabbage lined dish and press in. Top with the cabbage leaves, tucking them in. Chill for a couple of hours.
To assemble:
2 egg yolks
Divide the dough into thirds. Roll a third into a circle slightly wider than the dish the filling is in. Turn the filling onto the middle and brush the edges with egg yolk. Roll the remaining pastry and place over the top. Trim the edges.
Brush all over with egg yolk. Roll the edges out and cut into leaves and decorate over the top. Brush with more egg yolk. Prick a hole in the middle.
Set oven to 180oc and cook pie for about 40 minutes or until golden brown on top.
