CHEF and blogger Paul James writes for our paper
HAVING a large family in Australia, some of which I’ve never met, I thought I’d make a dish famous to its heritage.
Now you are probably thinking what traditional dishes come from ‘down under’ but they have some amazing restaurants and with the influences of Asia, some stunning fusion dishes.
But I wanted to scratch back the surface and go proper Australian.
Renowned for its seafood I thought I might try something daring. I could do marinated octopus, but I remembered the last time I tried to cook it – it took me nearly six hours to make, not that it was difficult, but the octopus kept on turning the gas off on the stove with its tentacles.
Right, Kangaroo burgers – another tricky one, difficult to catch, especially if it keeps on jumping around everywhere – even if I caught up with it, he would probably try and box my head off.
So let’s make Traditional Australian Meat Pie.
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Australian Meat Pie
Ingredients
1 onion finely chopped
500g beef mince
1 cup water
2 beef stock cubes
1/4 cup tomato sauce ( not purée )
2 tsp Worcestershire sauce
1 pinch salt and pepper to taste
3 tbs of cornstarch or thickening agent.
2 sheets of ready made shortcrust pastry
1 egg to glaze
Method
1. Cook meat and onion until meat is well browned.
2. Add ¾ cup water, stock cubes, sauces and seasonings.
3. Bring to the boil and simmer for 15 minutes. Blend cornstarch and the remaining water, add to meat, bring to the boil and simmer for 5 minutes. Cool right down.
4. Then slightly grease with butter, a pie dish and line your rolled out shortcrust pastry and ‘blind bake’ (pre-baking a crust can ensure that your pie crust will be fully baked and browned and not soggy) for 10 minutes.
5. Remove from the oven and spoon in the cooled meat mixture. Slightly moisten the edges of pastry with water.
6. Top with the other rolled out shortcrust pastry, pressing down to seal the edges, trim and glaze with egg.
7. Bake at 180c for 25-30 minutes until golden.
G’day mate and enjoy.
