Aussie meat pies and tomato ketchup

I had left this meal for the last one of the week on my meal plan, since I had to make a special trip to Kmart to get the individual pie tins. They are such a bargain, for a pack of four only $3.50. They also are a good way to prove bread dough to get perfectly shaped hamburger buns.

I started off making the tomato ketchup, as it requires quite a long cooking time. It thickens up nicely during the second cook, after adding the spices to it.

Ketchup at adding spices stage

It is quite a vinegary tasting sauce, but when having a little bit with something (such as a pie!) it tastes quite nice. It can be a little strong when you just have a taste of it on the spoon! It isn't really exactly like a store bough ketchup (like Heinz for example, which is what we usually have), but it is nice for something a little different. I popped the hot ketchup into some jam jars, and turned them upside down to form a vacuum seal. They do have a bit of sugar in them, so they will probably last in the fridge for a while.

Finished ketchup in jar

The pies...these babies took quite a long time and fiddling about to make! To be honest, next time I make them I would probably make one big pie in a cake tin. There are two types of icing - regular short crust pastry for the bases and iced butter puff pastry for the tops.

Short crust cases

Tomato ketchup

I have made the short crust pastry before and it works brilliantly. It is easy enough to roll out and cover the tins. They then have to go into the freezer to cool down again after handling them. This worked out okay though, since I also had the meat mixture that I had cooked cooling in the other freezer.

The iced butter puff pastry was another story. I didn't read beforehand that the butter needed to be frozen. So I diced it and put it in the freezer for 15 minutes, then made the pastry as instructed. It didn't really come together on its own, it was a big pile of breadcrumb-like mess when i poured it onto the pastry mat. Once it had been in the fridge for half an hour (while I made then cooled the beef mixture), I took it out and rolled it out. It was quite hard at first, but it soften up really quickly, and I had to put the discs I had cut out into the fridge to firm up again. By the time I got to the 5th disc, it was way too soft to roll and was getting stuck to everything. I put them all into the freezer while I filled the pies.

Meat filled pie cases

Iced butter puff pastry topped pies

I also found there wasn't quite enough pastry to make 6 pies, although I guess that would be because my tins may be slightly larger than the "texas muffin tin" suggested in the recipe book. I used a fork to crimp the edges of the pastry.

Once the pies came out of the oven, they looked great! They came out of the tins really easily, and had browned up nicely on the bottom. I did cook them on a metal baking tray so they would have even heat on the bases as well. The pies were really good with the tomato ketchup. I am pretty happy I have a spare left over for lunch tomorrow! I will keep it in the baking tin, and reheat it in the oven tomorrow so the pastry remains crisp.

Happy thermomixing!