Kate's Pie

This post is for my friend Kate- she has a brilliant food blog- West End Maw.  Kate is indeed a maw of two wee boys and a pretty incredible woman.  Not least she is a great writer, and her cooking and recipe choice is making me really happy these days.  Her most recent post is a hearty chilli to warm these first days of Autumn- check it out.

This recipe came to me via my Mum who copied it out of a magazine for me because it had everything in it my often fussy kiddos like to eat- mince, sweetcorn, hard boiled eggs, white sauce and puff pastry.  The magazine gave no clue to the origin of this recipe and after a bit of googling I found out it was from a little book published in the 80's by Josceline Dimbleby for Sainsburys called 'Marvellous Meals with Mince'. I sourced it on Ebay and was delighted to see the original recipe and read its full provenance.  I know it sounds a  little odd but it is damn tasty and my little ones devoured it!

Here it is reproduced from the book- Kate's Pie for Kate- only slight changes by me.

Kate's Pie- Marvellous Meals with Mince by Josceline Dimbleby

My youngest Kate always loved pies. For weeks I had been working on recipes for this book and every evening her suppers had been made up of rather exotic experiments. 'I just want a pie' she begged. So I made her this one, a sort of Southern pie; beef with a slight bite of chilli mixed with eggs and sweetcorn, topped with a fresh parley sauce and puff pastry.  She liked it, so did her friends and so did the 'grown ups'.

Ingredients
A little Olive oil for frying
2 cloves of garlic finely chopped
1/2 teaspoon chilli powder ( I also add 1/2 teaspoon of thyme often used in Southern cooking, Gumbos etc)
450 g minced beef/chicken/turkey
1 tablespoon tomato paste
6 oz frozen or tinned sweetcorn
4 hard boiled eggs, peeled and chopped
2 oz butter
1 oz plain flour
1 pint of milk
handful of fresh parsley chopped
sheet of ready rolled reduced fat puff pastry
milk for glazing

gas mark 7, 220c

Add oil to frying pan then fry garlic, add minced meat and chilli powder.  Break up mince with a wooden spoon until meat has separated and browned slightly.  Add tomato puree and season to taste.  Add the sweetcorn and chopped eggs and add to a shallow over dish.

Melt butter, stir in flour to make roux, slowly add the milk, bring to the boil, stirring to stop lumps. Remove from heat and season to taste and add parsley. Pour over the mince- leave to cool.

Unroll the pastry and put over the pie- closing the edges with a fork or pinch with your fingers.  Brush over milk as a glaze and cook the pie just above the centre of the oven for 25-30 minutes.