Australian Meat Pie

Ingredients for 1 servings:

• 1 kg minced beef
• 250 g beef goulash
• 500 ml beef broth, instant, highly concentrated
• 250 g bacon
• 2 onions
• 2 carrots
• 400 g mushrooms
• 2 cloves garlic
• 200 g tomato paste
• 1 red bell pepper(s)
• 300 g shortcrust pastry
• 150 g puff pastry, frozen
• 300 ml red wine, dry, Australian
• 60 ml Worcestershire sauce
• 4 cl Maggi
• 4 bay leaves
• 3 egg yolks

Instructions

Working time approx. 45 minutes; Rest time approx. 1 hour 30 minutes; Cooking/baking time approx. 1 hour 45 minutes; Total time approx. 4 hours

Makes 24 small meat pies

After my year in Australia, I really missed meat pies in Germany, but unfortunately I couldn’t find a really good recipe there, so when I traveled down under again, I asked an Australian housewife how she made her meat pie. She gave me a recipe that I’ll try to recreate here as best as I can. Brown the minced meat with the beef goulash, cut into 0.5 cm cubes, in oil and season with salt, pepper and paprika. When everything is lightly browned, add the onions, carrots, mushrooms, bacon, tomato paste and paprika. Deglaze with red wine and let it simmer for about 5 minutes, then pour in the strong beef stock and simmer on very low heat for about 1.5 hours. While the filling is simmering, add the bay leaves to the pot and only remove them before it thickens. Tear them slightly to give them a better flavor. Finally, add the Worcestershire sauce and the Maggi seasoning. Vegemite is actually called for in this recipe, but since it’s hard to get hold of in Germany and Maggi suits my taste best, I use that. Or if you can find Marmite in British shops you can use 2 tablespoons of that. Let everything sit for another 20 minutes and then season to taste with salt, pepper and paprika. Finally, mix some cold beef stock with cornstarch and thicken the meat until it almost becomes jelly-like. Let the filling cool down. While the filling is cooling, you can prepare the cases and line the bottoms with shortcrust pastry. Make sure there are no holes in the pastry, otherwise the filling could leak out. I recommend putting the muffin cases in a metal muffin tin, as the paper ones can easily fall apart. Once the filling has cooled, you can fill the cases and cover with ready-made puff pastry. Decorate the puff pastry lid as you like and brush it with egg yolk. Place the muffins in the oven at 220°C top/bottom heat for about 25 minutes until the pies are golden brown.