Scottish Meat Pies

3 minute read

Updated:

After watching the Great American Baking show, I was inspired to make some hand-raised pies. In the U.K. and Australia, these are very common pastries but they’re practically unheard of in North America. They are meat-filled pies that are wrapped inside a hot water crust, which is sturdy enough to stand on its own without a pie tin to support it. They can be eaten warm or cold and function as a portable, on-the-go food. They’re supposedly very popular at soccer games as concession foods, serving the same purpose as a hotdog would for Americans at a baseball game.

In particular, pork pies are traditional but I decided to go with ground meat. A Scotch pie or Scottish pie is a hand-raised pie that is filled with ground beef or lamb. There’s also a dish called bridies but I think those are more like empanadas or hand pies.

The flavours are very similar to tourtiere, which makes me wonder if they share some ancestry. The primary flavour components are ground beef, nutmeg, and oregano.

Although things didn’t turn out perfect, there’s always room to continually improve by doing a retrospective!

Learnings

Don’t overknead

Not many recipes spoke about the importance of kneading, compared to pie crust recipes. A hot water crust requires some kneading to develop gluten and structure. However, I think many recipes are wrong and overwork their pastry dough.

I would recommend kneading it until the dough just comes together and maybe a few more turns. This will give it strength but still allow it to be tender when cut into. My crust was chewy and tough, although it looked exactly as many videos online.

The more you knead, the better it will look, aesthetically. But it’s definitely trading off for texture.

Working with hot water crust

The boiling water denatures some of the gluten proteins. By denaturing the proteins before kneading, they no longer participate to form long gluten network. The resulting dough is very soft. If you’re worked with dough, you know that dough needs resting to allow gluten to relax. Even a short 15-minute rest will make a big difference in making it easier to roll out.

Hot water crust hydrates the flour to a larger extent than shortcrust. Similar to breads, this extra hydration will delay dehydration and provide a larger time window for the starches to gel. When it’s finally evaporated off, the starches contribute to crispiness.

A solid fat is used so that it solidifies once cooled. This is key to shaping the dough and holding its shape. You cannot make a hand-raised pie using oil as your fat. Even all-butter recipes are not recommended as the dough can be too slack in a warm kitchen. Lard and shortening are the star of the show here.

Scottish Pie:

I found two recipes that caught my eye and tried to incorporate the elements from both: BigOven and King Arthur Flour.

Hot water crust

Recipe

Ingredient Weight (g) Baker’s Percentage (%)
Flour 360 100
Lard 85 24
Water 170 47
Salt 3 1

Technique

  1. Bring fat and water to a boil.
  2. Mix dry ingredients with mixture in mixing bowl.
  3. Mix until everything is evenly hydrated.
  4. Once cooled enough to handle, knead a few times by hand. Do not overmix, knead enough so that dough doesn’t tear easily.
  5. Remove 1/3 and roll into 4 4” lids. Set aside.
  6. With remaining 2/3, roll out 4 more 6” circles.
  7. Shape crusts with a bowl or jar that is 4” in diameter.
  8. Chill crusts in refrigerator for 1 hour before using.
  • Hot water crust is forgiving when shaping. Tears can be patched with scraps.
  • Dough should be rolled to ~1/4”.

Pie

Pie Recipe

  • 500 g ground meat
  • 140 g chopped onions
  • 30 g oatmeal
  • salt, nutmeg, thyme
  • fish sauce
  • 100 ml gravy
  • 4 pie crusts

Pie Technique

  1. Mix together all ingredients, except for gravy.
  2. Fill into crust.
  3. Close crust with lids and crimp shut. Be sure to seal well.
  4. Poke out hole, size of wood spoon handle.
  5. Pour gravy into the hole.
  6. Egg wash.
  7. Bake at 325 for 30 minutes.
  • Unlike a shortcrust, there’s no flakiness to strive for. This means we can use a lower temperature.
  • Definitely egg wash, it will look drab otherwise.