Hairy Bikers mince and onion plate pie packs 750g of minced beef and two onions inside a butter, lard and baking powder crust. And in Perfect Pies it’s a pie for 6, roughly 3 hours including cooling, at my estimate of around 775 calories a slice.
The filling is Si’s mam’s method, which they say “worked for several decades”, and the raw mince simply bakes in stock. With no flour, tomato or Worcestershire in it, there’s just beef, onions, a stock cube, salt and plenty of black pepper.
Uncover the casserole for the second 30 minutes, until most of the stock has evaporated, because nothing else thickens this filling. Then wait until it’s completely cold, since in Perfect Pies they warn that warm filling softens the fat in the pastry and makes it stretch.
Hairy Bikers Mince and Onion Plate Pie
Description
Half the pastry lines a buttered 23 to 25cm pie plate, rolled just thicker than a £1 coin, before the cold beef goes in. Then the other half makes the lid, slashed for steam and glazed with egg for about 30 minutes in the oven.
Ingredients
For the pastry
For the filling
To finish
Instructions
- Make the pastry: Rub the butter and lard into the flour, baking powder and salt until the mixture looks like breadcrumbs. Then stir in the egg yolk with enough of the water to form a dough, knead very lightly and divide it into 2 flattened balls.
- Start the filling: Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 180°C/Fan 160°C/Gas 4 and mix the mince with the onions in a casserole dish. Then dissolve the stock cube in the boiling water and pour it over the meat. And season well, going heavy on the pepper, then cover and cook for 30 minutes.
- Cook it down: Take the lid off and cook for about another 30 minutes, until most of the liquid has evaporated and the flavour has developed. Then take it out of the oven and leave the filling until completely cold, allowing at least an hour by my reckoning.
- Line the plate: Heat the oven to 180°C/Fan 160°C/Gas 4 again if you switched it off, then grease a 23 to 25cm pie plate with butter. Roll out half the pastry on a lightly floured surface until slightly thicker than a £1 coin and line the plate. Then add the filling, leaving a good rim of pastry, and brush the edge with beaten egg.
- Lid and bake: Roll out the rest of the pastry, lay it over the filling and seal the edges together well. Cut a couple of slashes in the lid for the steam, then brush with beaten egg and bake for about 30 minutes until golden.
FAQs
Can I make small savoury mince pies instead?
Yes, though they use a different recipe for those: their savoury mince pies in Meat Feasts make 12 in a fairy cake tin. In those, 300g of mince is browned with onion and carrot, then simmered with flour, stock, tomato purée and Worcestershire.
They bake at 200°C/Fan 180°C/Gas 6 for 20 to 25 minutes in 9cm pastry cases, so a little quicker than the plate pie. And the method matches the savoury mince pies on hairybikers.com. But if you want potato in with the mince, their meat and potato pie in Perfect Pies bakes both in a 20cm square tin.
Is the BBC Food minced beef pie theirs?
It isn’t credited to them, because BBC Food is listed as the author, even though it ranks for their name. Instead it uses 500g of mince with tomato purée, flour, mushrooms and stout or stock, plus 400g of ready-made shortcrust, to serve 4.
So if you like a thicker gravy round your mince, their cottage pie with cheesy mash in Perfect Pies is closer to that style. And its 500g of lean mince gets 150ml of red wine and 2 tbsp of flour.
Which pastry works best, and can I use puff?
It’s almost the same shortcrust as the base of their game pie in Perfect Pies, though this one adds an egg yolk. And I’d expect the 2 tsp of baking powder to make it softer than standard shortcrust, though that’s my reading.
Swapping in puff is my idea rather than theirs, though in Perfect Pies they write that you can buy excellent all-butter puff now. So if you try it, take ready-rolled sheets out of the fridge about 5 minutes before unrolling, as they advise.
How do I stop the base going soggy?
I’d use a metal plate if you have one, since they write in Perfect Pies that metal pie plates conduct heat brilliantly. But if yours is ceramic, they suggest heating a baking tray in the oven first and baking the pie on it.
If the filling still looks wet at the end of cooking, cornflour helps, since they write that it stops meat fillings soaking into pastry bases. So I’d stir in equal amounts of cornflour and water while it’s still hot and cook a few minutes more, which is my fix.
Can I make it the day before?
Yes, because in Perfect Pies they write that a filled pie can be chilled overnight before baking. Then add a few minutes to the baking time, since it goes in straight from the fridge. But there’s no freezing advice for this pie, so I’d keep leftovers covered in the fridge for up to 2 days, which is my call.
And Dave remembers his mum making a pie “to last a couple of days”, though it never stayed around that long. Or for mince without the pastry, their minced beef and dumplings in British Classics steams twelve herby suet dumplings on top.
