Old-Fashioned Meat Pie

with old-fashioned raised beef

Hello my dear friends,

It can be equally exciting and melancholy to look back over one’s life and ask the question “How did I get here?”. I often do. Though I’m not one typically who spends too much time looking backwards, I do appreciate the building blocks of life, experiences, and situations that forged me into a particular version of "Shaye”.

Perhaps I’ve never told you this, but it was an old boyfriend that introduced me to my first cow. His name was Benny (the cow, not the boyfriend). It was quite literally love at first sight (again, with the cow, not the boyfriend). Had I not been introduced to cows, what would my life have been like? Would I have pursued being a farmer? Would I have been bold enough to bring a dairy cow onto the farm? Would I have wanted to raise calves up for meat? Study Animal Science as an Undergraduate? Though the boyfriend is long gone, the experience and consequential bovine imprint remains.

Years ago, at the beginning of my homesteading? homemaking? from-scratch? living, I was also introduced (by a YouTube search ironically) to Victorian Farm. I absolutely binged the series and quickly followed up my gluttony with Edwardian Farm, Wartime Farm, etc. I couldn’t get enough of Peter, Alex, and Ruth’s adventures in a bygone era. Each episode still sticks with me (which you will see in the new video featuring Ruth’s hot-water-and-lard pastry dough).

Perhaps I’ve never told you this either, but after my college graduation, I took up work at a feedlot. Eat morning, I drove a massive feed truck, feeding over 40,000 head of cattle on any given day. Pens of cattle as far as the eye could see spanned the Central Washington feedlot. I spent a lot of time during that season of life praying (I had a lot of alone time) and talking to the cattle. (Sometimes I put a few tons of feed into the wrong feed trough and had to shovel it all out by hand. That gave the cattle and I A LOT of time to chat.). Truth be told, I couldn’t stomach it. I saw things I wish I could unsee. I saw a creature that I loved in a situation that I hated. Again, who I am now is drastically changed by such a history and I don’t speak the words in today’s video absently. I speak them with conviction because of those building blocks that got me here.

At that time, words like “grass-fed” and “organic” and “pastured” were completely fringe. Now, we have ABSOLUTELY FABULOUS companies like Porter Road that are positively killin’ it (pun intended) in terms of quality meats, from animal husbandry standards to quality butchering techniques to reviving lost cuts that belong on your plate.

So perhaps I get a bit wordy as we belly up to the table and make this absolutely wonderful, old-fashioned meat pie together, but I hope you know it comes from a heart of love for good old-fashioned recipes and raising our meat in good old-fashioned ways.

Cheers,

Shaye

You can get 15% off your first order with Porter Road right here. I am very grateful to be able to introduce you to such a fabulous company that I not only use and but seriously love.

Old-Fashioned Christmas Meat Pie

For the filling

4 tablespoons butter

1, 3-4 pound chuck roast, cut into 1” pieces

2 tablespoons flour

Spices of choice, to taste

1 cup of wine

8 ounces creme fraiche

For the crust

2 pounds all purpose flour

350 grams lard, tallow, goose fat, or butter

1 cup water

1 egg, beaten

1. Preheat the oven to 250 degrees. Sprinkle the spices and flour over the meat pieces and stir to combine. Add the butter into a Dutch Oven and brown the meat.

2. Add 1 cup of liquid (wine or broth) into the meat. Put a lid on the Dutch oven and let it cook low and slow in the oven for 2-3 hours or until the meat pieces are fall apart tender.

3. Measure out the flour for the crust into a mixing bowl.

4. Combine the lard and water in a small saucepan and bring to a boil. 

5. Combine the flour and lard together until the dough is very smooth.

6. Line a springform with parchment paper and set aside.

7. Remove 1/3 of the dough and reserve it for the lid.

8. Working with the remaining dough, roll it into a round. Transfer it to the springform pan and use your hands to form it evenly in the pan.

9. Mix with creme fraiche into the cooked meat mixture and season to taste. Add the meat filling into the dough.

10. Use the remaining piece of dough, roll it out into a small circle, to cover the top of the pie. Use your fingers to press the edges together. Cut a few slits in the top of the meat pie to let steam escape. 

11. Bake in a preheated 350 degree oven for 1-1.5 hours (reduce the time to 1 hour if making smaller pies). In the last ten minutes, brush with an egg wash and bake for a few more minutes, until golden.