This is quite possibly my favourite pie ever, and it might even be one of the best things I've ever baked - it was certainly worth the time and effort it took to make it! If you're looking for a way to celebrate British Pie Week, this is the way to do it!

The Ship's Cook

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(Image: flickr// Robert Couse-Baker)

Some people claim baking the perfect pie crust is an art, but actually it can be just as much a science. Experts at the University of California, Los Angeles, have looked into the science of baking the perfect apple pie, and have made a few suggestions for how baking the perfect crust can really be easy as pie.
First of all, you want to achieve a lovely golden brown colour with your pie crust. A chemical reaction called the Maillard reaction is your friend here. This occurs at high temperatures between amino acids such as proteins, and sugar molecules such as lactose, and it gives the pie crust its beautiful brown complexion. So brushing the pastry with something with lots of protein, like egg, that’s mixed in with a lactose-rich solution, such as cream, means you’ll promote these browning reactions and score highly on the 'C' of 'colour'.

But the crust isn’t all about colour; you also want the right crust texture so that it holds itself together and scores highly on 'condition', but isn’t too doughy or tough. When it comes to crust texture, the formation of gluten protein networks is the key player. Flour contains two proteins, glutenin and gliadin, which form gluten when mixed with water. If your flour has a high protein content, when it meets water it will form quite extensive gluten protein networks which make the crust too dense and score poorly on 'chewiness'. Using flour that’s lower in protein will make the crust more tender. Interestingly, you can also add alcohol or vinegar to the mixture to prevent the formation of theses gluten network and get a tenderer, flakier crust. So a nice vodka pie crust is not a bad idea at all.

flickr// Robert S Donovan

Now consider butter. Really it is just water droplets dispersed in a fat matrix. When this water is heated, it turns to gas, filling your pie crust with air. This gives the crust a nice flaky texture. Note that butters can vary in their fat and water content, so using a butter with a lower fat content and higher water content should give you a flakier crust. Importantly, however, butter also prevents flour from forming the gluten networks we’ve been talking about. Therefore you want to make sure that your butter pieces are small enough to be evenly distributed throughout the dough and mop up all the dry flour before the water is added. However don't forget to also add some larger butter pieces to form nice air bubbles and keep the pastry flaky.

So for the perfect pie crust, use a low-protein flour, add alcohol, use a low fat butter that’s high in water content, and make sure your butter pieces are small to mop up the dry flour. That is the science of pie baking.

You can read more about the science of pie baking at the New York Times.

TJP

See our Pierate Pie Rankings for some top pie crusts or find our homemade pies on Pierate. Make sure you Follow @pierateers and let us know your thoughts!

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The final day of British Pie Week aimed to cap off a fine week of pie consumption for Pierateer RAS by also celebrating National Butchers Week, which happened to coincide with British Pie Week (4^th to 10^th March 2013). Having already picked up a pork pie from his local butchers, Berry Bros in Selly Oak (Birmingham), he was set to give the local produce a rating. We’ve no doubt all heard about the various controversies in the news about supermarket meat produce not always being what it was labelled as, so I was assured to get straight to the source (or at least as close as possible!) buy going to my local butchers for pie, who informed me that it was a local farm seller who produced the pork pies they sold.

However before I review, let me just point out that the final couple of Morrisons Apple Pies went down a treat on Sunday, having one for breakfast and then another to celebrate the end of a fantastic Yonex All England Badminton Championships in Birmingham, hosted once again by Badminton England.

PIE REVIEW:
Have a butchers at this: Would it be a Berry good pie?

Going to your local butchers, you hope to have a bit more confidence in getting exactly what it says on the tin, or in the case of this pork pie from Berry Bros in Selly Oak, exactly what is says on the sticker! Unfortunately it didn’t have anything on the sticker, but I was assured this was a locally sourced pork pie from a farmer near the Birmingham area.

The pork pie itself was golden brown, a little soft pastry-wise in places but still nice and fresh. The meat was on the whole very nice, not too grisly but a tad spicy (certainly left a bit of a kick after eating it, unlike some other pork pies I have tried recently). There was also certainly a layer of jelly around the cured meat in the pie, which I wasn’t too fond of but I recognise some pork pie fans would have enjoyed. All in all, a nice and fresh pie option from Berry Bros, but just a shame that they don’t sell meat-in-gravy pies too. I’m Berry disappointed as their pork pies are nice!

Berry Bros Butchers Pork Pie
Score: 4.0/7 (RAS)

So there we have it for Pierateer RAS: seven days, twenty pies and a whole lot of pastry boosted calories! Still, it was worth every second of it! More reviews to come, but for now, I hope everyone had a great British Pie Week and look forward to reviewing more next March!

RAS Pie Count Day Seven: 3
RAS BPW Total: 20

SJL started day seven with another Co-op Apple Pie and a cup of tea for pre-breakfast. A trip to Waitrose the day before meant lunch was planned. A Waitrose Essentials Beef & Onion pie in the same shallow shape the same as the 50p Asda ones reviewed on Day Three and Day Five. This pie cost a fair bit more at 89p but this meant that it contained a whopping 20% meat. The soft puff pastry was very much the same as the Asda ones. The extra meat certainly made a difference and the filling was more noticeable, but not much more. It didn't justify it's extra price tag and so sadly this pie will be left languishing in the bottom of the pie rate rankings. Not bad, but not great for the price and certainly not recommended to bother buying if at all possible. It tasted very similar to a Pukka Pie only not as good. It is interesting but not perhaps surprising to note that the Waitrose cheapest range is more expensive than the Asda standard range and also slightly better.

Later in the day to celebrate the end of British pie week SJL embarked on some pie baking. This time he opted for a much more normal type of pie in the form of a chicken and chorizo pie. The technique adopted was to boil the whole chicken for some hour and half with some onion, celery and seasoning. This made the meat nice and soft and also provided some stock for the filling. The stock was mixed with some fried chorizo and white sauce and a pie filling was born. Gluten free pastry was made especially for the pie. While this tends to be more crumbly and the texture isn't quite as good the taste is fine and the pastry did a fine job of containing the filling. All in all we were quite happy with this pie and the time put into it's preparation was worth it. There was also plenty of pie left over to ensure that while British Pie Week might have come to an end the pie consumption certainly has not.




Waitrose Essentials - Beef & Onion - 3.17

SJL Pie Count Day Seven: 3
SJL BPW Total: 24

Day Seven Total: 6
British Pie Week Total: 50

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To mark Queen Elizabeth's 60 years on the throne and as part of the Diamond Jubilee celebrations, the Senei produced a royally good pie! Provided at the Jubilee Lunch, hosted by City Church Birmingham, the red, white and blue bunting, flags and decorations by the children only added to the carnival atmosphere, as I dived in to grab the first slice of homemade Chicken & Stuffing Picnic Pie. The first thing to note were the nice chunks of chicken that were spread throughout the centre of the pie, giving every slice of pie that meatilicious content every savoury pie reviewer craves. The chicken and stuffing worked perfectly together, combining well with the nice thick pastry coating. I must have picked the perfect slice, as it did not crumble until the last mouthful, and while I did spot a few slightly crumbling slices on other people’s plates (notably the chef and chefess themselves), it was indeed a very fine and well crafted pie. And even better – it did not cost me a penny! It was packed full of content, my only slight criticism being a slightly higher content of chicken would have rounded it off perfectly, but all in all my first taste of Chicken & Stuffing Picnic Pie has left me craving for more! Bring on the 70 year celebrations!

The Queen would have certainly given this pie her royal seal of approval! A great pie to celebrate the Diamond Jubilee weekend with!

Score: 6.1/7
Chicken and Stuffing Picnic Pie

Bryony's patriotic Jubilee Cake, eaten at another Jubilee celebration!

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Word on the street is that Miss Crabtree likes to crack out her chicken and rice speciality dish to all her guests, providing them with a delicious chicken in white wine sauce. Great...but why is this being mentioned on the world’s number one pie blog? Well let me tell you! For it was an absolute delight when recently frequenting said friend’s house for said chicken and rice speciality dish that the chicken dish had been covered in pastry and turned into a pie!* Excellent!

Yes, that is rice...

Chicken Pie
RAS

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 The benefit of making your own pie is that you can pretty much just do what you like with it.

Though a bit late in posting, to celebrate British Pie Week, this pierateer got a bit inventive when making a pork pie. The method for the filling is surprisingly simple, yet as can be seen in the image, creates a succulent middle to this pie. The different textures of the pork, stuffing and gravy made this such a treat. Please let us know if you make this pie or any alterations you make!

First, slow roast a joint of pork. We did this in our slow cooker over night with some water, apple, onion and garlic. Once the meat is so tender it is falling apart, remove the joint. Set aside the resulting gravy (we didn't use it in this pie as it was very fatty, but we put it in the fridge and let the fat settle so we could remove it from the rest of the gravy and used the resulting sauce in a pork risotto!). Make up your pastry and line the bottom of your pie dish. Boil the kettle and make up some thick onion gravy and in a separate jug, some instant apple and sage stuffing. Put the pork, stuffing and gravy into the pie and then cover with more pastry. Cook until pastry is brown.

Enjoy! ARL

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Here at Pierate we love a good, pun-heavy and banterous article title, even if it does come at the expense of actual accuracy for the pie it relates to. And this is no different, for I am not in any way promoting the eating of a Leak filled pie, or even a pie with any Leak in, but instead bigging up the very delicious Chicken and Bacon pie I had a while ago at my good friend Mr Leak’s house. It was a well crafted pie packed with Chicken and Bacon goodness, harking back to the good old days of meatilicious meals when we lived together.


RAS

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While there may be a stewards enquiry if a Pierateer were to review a fellow Pierateer's homemade birthday pie, it is safe to say that SJL's homemade mini "Turkey and trimmings" pies were lovely and a great addition to the birthday winter picnic experience. Happy Birthday!


(For the record, I did also have some birthday cake, but only after at least 3 pies!)

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Here at the Pierate Ship we've recently gone a bit bonkers on making our own pies. I suppose it would be quite hypocritical of us to be reviewing pies all the time when we don't actually know how to make them ourselves. So, inspired by Sainsbury's' filo pastry pie that was recently reviewed on Pierate, I set to work making my own Spinach and Feta Filo Pastry Pie, using a Jamie Oliver recipe. After a rather expensive shopping trip (about 6 times the cost of buying a ready-made pie, but the pie is quite large and not full of weird additives), I gathered all my ingredients.

The eggs, feta cheese, spinach and other ingredients are mixed together in a separate pan. The filo pastry is laid out in layers, and then laid over the top of a frying pan. The cheesy spinach mixture is then poured over the top of the pastry so it sits neatly in the pan, and the pastry that flops over the edge is folded on top to make the top crust of the pie. This then sits in the oven in the frying pan. Be sure not to absent-mindedly pick the frying pan up by the handle after you've taken it out of the oven - I soon discovered that this causes quite a lot of pain and the need to keep your hand under cool water for much of the remaining afternoon.

The finished product. Note that the filo pastry encases the whole of the pie - making this not just a top crust pie! I'm quite pleased with it, and I think it actually tastes pretty good if I can say so myself. My guest who I cooked it for seemed to be fairly impressed with my effort, especially when I could show off my raw and blistered hand. Highly recommended.



(No score due to obvious conflict of interest)

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Here at Pierate we're not know to stick to the conventional. We try anything, egg and bacon pie, lentil pie, polabe pie and popcorn pie to name but a few of the myriad of largely digestible products enclosed in the familiar golden pastry. So when we decided to host a gathering at our flat in the name of Eurovision I decided to push the boat out and go for a new creation, Risotto Pie. Yes, a pie with rice in, unusual but it seemed appropriate as a blend of European cultures.

Here is what you'll need to make a fairly large vegetable and rice pie.

250g spinach, 1 red pepper, 3 courgettes, 1 onion, 100g risotto rice, 100g Parmesan cheese, 3 beaten eggs, salt and pepper

Its really easy to make, just cook the spinach in a tiny bit of water until it's wilted, then cut it up. Then chop and mix all the other ingredients together, and encase it in pastry in the familiar fashion. Its especially easy if you get shop bought pasty but make sure it is fairly thin. I recommend the traditional shortcrust base and sides with a puff pastry lid. Cook for about 40 minutes

Et voilà! The rice loves it's new found pastry home, melting into a creamy filling. I cannot really speculate as to how good everyone else found the pie but I would hope it didn't receive nul points. The only reason I felt sick was the lack of talent on display and the inexplicable choice of winner, Azerbaijan? Their song was certainly more cheesy than this pie!

SJL

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Here at pierate, we not only want to inform you of the best pies you can buy in shops, we also want to share with you ideas to create your own master pie-ces, (like the Lentil Pie featured earlier). So today we have two pie recipes to share with our fellow pie lovers!

Pie On A Budget.
We've all been there. You have people coming around for dinner and it's not pay day until tomorrow. You know they're not expecting a slap up meal, but beans on toast is not an option either. You need to impress them. But lo! Feeding four on a budget really is as easy as pie.

Armed with a £4 Tesco club card voucher I headed into the supermarket and came out with: 59p 'just add water' pastry mix, 2 for £1 condensed soup tins (one chicken, one chicken with white wine), a 36p tin of sweetcorn, a bag of frozen chips (99p) and a £1 bag of frozen veg. "Wait!" I hear you cry! "Where is the meat?" Well, when I got home I defrosted a bag of roast chicken leftovers, the 'red' meat that goes well in things like casseroles. Well it also goes brilliantly in pie! I also chucked in a few finely chopped mushrooms that I had in the fridge and needed using up.

I made the pie and served in with the chips and veg. It went down a storm and I was commended on my chef skills and was begged for the recipe. So here it is pie fans! A fantastic pie on a fantastic budget!


Is It a Pie?

A huge question here at pierate is whether mash potato on top of a base counts as a pie (e.g. the traditional Shepard's Pie). The general opinion of pieraters is that these are not in fact pies. But this image of meat and gravy baked in the oven with mash on top (rather than pastry) is strong in the public's view of pies. Furthermore, here at pierate, we encourage experimentation. So here is a classic twist on the traditional Shepard's 'Pie'.

Here we have the chicken and bacon 'pie'. Diced chicken and bacon, fried with herbs, garlic and pepper then chucked in a pie dish with a cheese sauce and a tin of sweetcorn, then mash potato placed on top and baked until the mash is tinged brown. Now, not one to blow my own trumpet, this 'pie' was scrummy. But while it was baked in a pie dish and had a lid, it doesn't really count as a pie. Now if the whole thing were to be encased in pastry (including the mash)... That must be my next project.




ARL

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It may be the first day of Lent today but that certainly doesn't mean that I'm going to give up pies! Not least because, as we have already mentioned, it is British Pie Week when pies a plenty are eaten. I thought I really should put in the effort to make a pie of my own for this very special week.

We are an open minded lot here on the Pierate Ship. True, we make people walk the plank if they 'accidentally' eat a slice instead of a pie but when it comes to pies themselves we try anything. I needed a more vegetarian friendly option so I could share British Pie Week with my housemates and hence the idea of a Lentil Pie came to me. The filling was similar to a meat pie but instead of mince I used lentils. For a pie big enough for four people I used;

250g red lentils, 1 onion, 2 cloves of garlic, 1 carrot, a load of stock and salt/pepper/herbs

Unfortunately British Pie Week has become very commercialised in recent years. In fact it has been entirely commercial since forever. It is the creation of General Mills (one of the largest food companies in the world) to advertise their Jus-Rol pastry range. Hence, as a snub to them, I decided I would have a bash at making some pastry of my own. Just because I love pies does not mean that I am good at making pastry, this is for some reason a common misconception. I am terrible, the pastry was too dry so I put more water in and then it was too wet. Then I realised I had only made enough for the base so cheated with some shop bought puff pastry for the lid, this saved the pie I think! (It wasn't Jus-Rol so it's okay)

Here is a picture of the pie in its precooked condtion, note the use of a traditional blackbird shaped pie funnel. This really helps the pie to not deflate while cooking. Of course, to get a nice golden colour it is important to brush the pie in milk or preferably egg. However I normally find I don't want to waste a whole egg doing this. Today I was lucky enough to have broken an egg on my shopping trip so used the residue from the egg box to create the nice colours you can see in the cooked version. (pretty classy huh?)
Upon serving the pie my pastry base promptly disintegrated leaving a gloopy mess. Despite this I thought it was a decent meal alongside some mashed swede and peas (I know, I didn't use potato, but that's an article for another time).The filling had a good taste, although was a little too runny. I won't give it a score due to a lack of impartiality but I can certainly recommend the use of Lentils as an alternative to meat in a pie.

Have a great British Pie Week!

SJL

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Here are some photographs of an attempt at home-made pie baking. Please note that our web address is www.pierate.co.uk and NOT the web address INCORRECTLY written on the pie. This is a regretful typographical error, and www.pierate.co.uk has no affiliation with nor holds any responsibility for the content on this external link.



Again, please note that our web address is www.pierate.co.uk and NOT the web address INCORRECTLY written on the pie.

The final post-baking article:



A characterful lattice-attempt:



I certainly found home-baking pies to be an enjoyable experience, and had great fun concocting the filling and laying the lattice. Unfortunately the recipe for the filling was rather made-up and has been misplaced, but perhaps sometime in the future you may see some great pie filling recipes up here! Don't be afraid to have your own go at pie-baking!!!

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