Everybody’s excited for the weekend. Who wouldn’t be excited to enjoy the weekend? No stressful work, no need to spend time with the irritating and nagging colleagues and most especially, no overtime works. Parents, kids and friends are looking forward to relaxing and fun filled weekend. Movies, games, outdoor and indoor activities both complete our Saturday and Sunday. But, weekends can never be complete without good food to feed our hungry and rumbling stomach. Thus, it’s a must to reward ourselves with mouth-watering foods that we prepared all by ourselves. Well, Australians and maybe foreign individuals will never say no to one of Australia’s best tasting pies, the AUSSIE MEAT PIE. It’s one of the most delicious pies in Australia which is mainly stuffed with meat and tastes better with its additional ingredients.
Is it expensive? Can I make it from scratch? Can I just use simple ingredients and not the ingredients that expensive pastry shops and bakeries uses? Will it take me a day to prepare for this meal? Well, the answer is No, Yes, Yes and No. Why would you spend a lot of money if you can just recreate it in the comfort of your home? Plus it will be an additional bonding activity for you and your family or friends. Well, over the weekend, I decided to recreate the Australian Meat Pie using simple ingredient and only those that I can find in our fridge. It’s money saving isn’t it? Well, let’s start with the simple ingredients for our tasty pie. Here are the ingredients that you need to start looking for inside your fridge.
For the pastry here are the things that you need:
250gm Plain Flour
175gm Cold Butter
4-8 Tablespoons Chilled water
For the topping:
4 eggs
20 grams of Beer Cheese (or Mozzarella)
And for the filling:
250 grams ground Beef
Few Bacon Strips
1 Onion
Tablespoon Pepper
Salt to taste (Pinch)
Half cup Beef Stock
2 Teaspoons Corn flour
2 tsp Garlic Powder
2 tsp Onion Powder
Are all these ingredients available in your fridge? If yes, now you’re ready to start preparing for your mouth watering and jaw dropping meat pie. If not, list the ingredients down, grab your keys , start up your car and hit the nearest supermarket and make sure to purchase every ingredient needed. Once complete, scroll down ‘coz we’ll be exploring the most exciting part… COOKING TIME.
Ingredients? CHECK. Cooking tools and paraphernalias? READY. To start with, we need to have our pie crust ready. To make our pastry, 250 grams of flour with a pinch of salt and 175 grams of butter will be mixed together to achieve a bread crumb texture and consistency. And to have a taste of home in your pastry, I suggest that you should use your hands as you mix the ingredients and make sure not to let our butter melt. So make sure you don’t take a very long time for this process. Next, add a few tablespoon of water in the mixture and using a spatula, mix the ingredients thoroughly. Once the mixture already formed a dough-like texture, it is now ready for the kneading process. (HINT: to check if you have achieved the right consistency, just press your fingers slightly on the mixture and if sticks well, you did it right.) After kneading, wait for the dough to set by rolling it into a ball and letting it chill on the fridge for half an hour.
While waiting for the dough to set, start preparing for the filling. Cut the bacon strips to small pieces, mince the onion and in a separate bowl, mix the ground beef and the other seasonings. Don’t forget to check your dough 🙂 Once the dough is ready, gently roll the rolling pin on the dough to make it thin and perfect for the mold. Set aside.
To prepare the filling, in a medium heat pan, saute the onion, add the beef and the beef broth to soften the meat. You can also add a small amount of Worcestershire Sauce to add more flavour to the meat. Add the remaining ingredients in the pan. And when the meat is ready, put them on the prepared pie pastry and crack and egg on top and for some final touches, add some mozzarella cheese. Bake in the oven for 30 to 45 minutes at 150 degrees Celsius..
Voila!!! You now have a tasty and freshly baked meat pie. Surprise your family and friends with this easy but yummy dish. Weekend is more fun with good foods and good company.
