Monique McDonell Day 4

The Upper Crust Series revolves around a group of friends who met through Piper, the founder of Pied Piper’s Pies. Piper is an Australian who lives in Boston and runs a chain of food trucks that sell Australian meat pies.

The meat pie is the classic Australian fats food. Where an American might get a hotdog at a sporting
event, we would tend to get a meat pie. Every suburb has a pie shop. They sell them for school lunches and in the frozen food section of the supermarket.

When we visited the US years ago my husband and I thought someone should really bring the pie to
America. There’s now a company called Pie Face (you may have seen their stores in bigger cities) and they’ve done that.
Piper’s business was a small operation and it is doing so well they’ve been bought out by a large
international fast food conglomerate. Luke in Any Way You Fight It, works for that company which is how he comes into the orbit of Cherie.

If you’ve never had an Aussie style meat pie, they’re pretty easy to make. They now come in all manner of flavours from Beef and Burgundy to Thai Chicken Curry but the traditional version uses minced meat, known as hamburger in America and if you use store bought pastry is super simple.
If you’re curious to know what they taste like here is my recipe.
This is a family pie that I make in a family sized pie plate but it can also be made as 4 individual pies if you have individual pie plates. This is one of my daughter's family favourites.

Australian Meat Pie - serves 4

1 quantity of shortcrust pastry or one pie shell (I'll post my recipe soon)
olive oil
2 small or 1 large onion diced
500g beef mince
1/4 cup Worcestershire sauce
2 tablespoons of soy sauce
1 beef stock cube
2 cups hot water
2 tablespoons cornflour
2 tablespoons water (extra)
1 sheet puff pastry
1 egg yolk.

1. Heat oil in pan and add onions, cook stirring until soft. Add mice, cook stirring until browned.

2. Stir in sauces, stock cube and water (I dissolve the stock cube in water first) simmer 15 minutes. Stir in cornflour and extra water. Stir over high heat until it boils and thickens. Cool.

3. Grease a pie plate with butter or olive oil and roll pastry to fit pie plate. Cover pastry with baking paper, fill with dried beans or pie weights and bake in moderate oven 8 minutes. remove beans and cook a further 8 minutes.

4. Fill pie shell with meat mixture. Brush edges or pastry with egg yolk and press puff pastry on top. Cut to fit. You can use any scraps to decorate. Brush pie with more egg yolk. Bake in oven 20-25 minutes until golden.
Enjoy!