Game Pie

[hilarita]

This is something I've been making at this time of year for the past few years. It is fairly labour-intensive. I usually make this a couple of days before Christmas, to be eaten for Christmas Day tea and on Boxing Day. (And possibly for a lot of days afterwards, if there are only 3 people to eat pies.)

Equipment needed:

An oven

Fairly big saucepan (with lid)

Rolling pin

pie dishes

boxes/jars/things you can put liquid into for freezing.

A slotted spoon will help

Ingredients:

This makes two pies, with juice/broth/stuff left over, to use as a base next time you want to have something taste like you spent hours cooking it but you only have 20 minutes.

For the pie filling:

A pack of game or venison from a suitable purveyor of meats. I got a pack of about 300g of venison from my parents' local butcher

(optional) A bottle of very, very cheap red wine

Mushrooms. So many mushrooms. (At least 600g). I used a mix of Shiitake, Portobello, Chestnut and ordinary.

Leek - I usually do around half a large leek

Garlic - as much as you like

stock - I often use a Knorr Stock Pot thingy, plus some vegetable Bouillon

seasoning - usually Paprika, black pepper, and some herbs, preferably fresh, but whatever you like, really

2-3 tablespoons plain flour

For the pastry:

5-6 ounces plain flour (you can sub in gf flour) per pie - this depends on the size of your pie dish. The ones I use are about 70 years old, and 5oz of flour makes a pie with a lattice on top, and 6oz a proper pie. This is a deeply unhelpful measure - I'm sorry. Generations of cooks have taught me how to optimise for these dishes. This also works as quantities for my 15cm x 2cm pie tins.

2.5-3 ounces (unsalted) butter per pie. (This is shortcrust pastry - you want a ratio of butter/lard to flour of 1:2 )

tiny sprinkle of salt (if you're using unsalted butter)

1 egg

some very cold water

30ml approx milk

Method:

First you are going to make mushroom and game stew.

I chop the leek and garlic finely, stick in the large saucepan with an unsticking agent of choice (this is usually olive oil).

Put the flour in a bowl. Add in some Paprika and black pepper, and any dried herbs you like. Mix well. (I reckon this is done right once the flour is a sort of pale brown as a result of adding Stuff. Roll the bits of game in it. (You may need to make the bits of game smaller, so they fit nicely in your pie.

Add the game on a high heat. Turn over until gently brown on the outside. Turn the heat down while you massacre mushrooms.

Massacre mushrooms. Chop them fairly finely. Add them to the stoo.

Turn the heat back up a bit, and pour in the red wine. Also add more seasoning, bouillon/stock, some boiling water, and the remains of the flour that you've rolled the venison in. Stir.

Once it's reached a boil, put it on to a very low heat, and leave for A Long While.

When the stew is nearly dead (I usually reckon about 3 hours), it's time to make pie pastry! (In the interim, I have usually been baking even more baked things.) If you have a preferred method, use that instead. I learnt to make pastry from a 1960s Good Housekeeping book, so I've memorised the measurements for shortcrust pastry in ounces. Fortunately, my scales will rescue me from the 21st century, and make it so I don't have to convert.

Take butter out of fridge. Weigh, and put into a bowl.

Weigh your flour into the same bowl. Cut up your butter into little cubes.

Rub flour into butter, with light motions, lifting it up to get to the flour hiding at the bottom of the bowl

You're meant to stop when it's all like breadcrumbs, but I find that better results are when it's mostly like breadcrumbs. I claim this because I get bored easily.

Remember that you should add salt, because you were using unsalted butter. Add some salt and stir in.

Crack egg into bowl. Mix in thoroughly. This won't be enough to form a dough, so add cold water carefully, until you can stir it (mostly) into a ball. (There will be some odd stragglers, but that's fine).

Realise it's time to put the oven on to about Gas Mark 5. Frankly, my own oven and the one I made this pie in are broken, in different directions. Doing this at Gas 4 or Gas 6 doesn't seem to do any terminal harm to the pastry. Gas 3 or Gas 7 might.

Cover a worksurface or something with flour. (In my case, liberally coat the rest of the kitchen as well.) Roll out your pastry with your rolling pin. If I'm doing this with gluten-containing flour, I'm aiming for 1.5-2mm thickness. If I'm using gf flour, I'm aiming for about 3mm, and giving up because gf pastry hates the universe. Also, try and make this approximately round. (Ahahahaha, you must be kidding, right?) I'm lazy, and until recently had feeble weeble arms, so I use very light strokes, turning my pastry frequently. If I'm doing two full pies, I divide the dough roughly in four before rolling. If I'm doing lattices, I make sure two lumps are definitely bigger. If you're doing lattices, cut the smaller bits of rolled dough into strips that are long enough to go across your pie tin.

Find the pie tins. Grease the pie tins. (There's bound to be more butter somewhere.)

Put your pie bases into the pie tins. Blind baking is for people who don't like a contrast between the juicy pastry at the bottom of a pie, and the crispy pastry on top. (i.e. if you are trying to please Mary Berry, you'll want to blind bake. You may be able to tell that I don't bother.)

Use your (slotted) spoon to fish the more solid bits of stew out of the saucepan, and put them into the pie dish. The liquid level should be just threatening to escape, and there should be a small mound of filling on top.

Brush round the edges of the pie tin with milk. Put your pastry lid (or lattice bits) on top. You can try to be decorative, but my skills don't lie that way. Brush top with milk.

Bung in oven for 20-25 minutes - until golden brown for most pastries (or until you think it might not be quite so pallid with gf pastries). Congratulations, you have pie. You can either serve hot, or leave to cool and eat later.

Put the runny bits of stoo that are left into some pots, and freeze them.

This pie will be very rich, very full-bodied, and usually delicious.