January 3, 2007
Natchitoches Meat Pies
It took me a few days, but I made these meat pies. They were quite good. Of course I didn’t follow the rules very well and I’m a newbie with pie dough. I made a half recipe (6 pies or pasties or turnovers or empanadas or various other names). I chose to use pork breakfast sausage instead of ground pork. That works well for things like meatballs, meat loaf and this filling. I don’t have a bowl of Emeril’s Essence so I left that out. It might be better if I had some, but I’ve no complaint on the flavor of my mix. I cooked it up a few days ago and put in the fridge. A few minute on microwave defrost took the chill off.
Then there is the dough, Instead of milk I used buttermilk and I added too much milk/egg mixture to the dry ingredients. Not a stiff dough at all. I added several more table spoons of flour and mixed and it was still softer than I wanted but I was getting bored by then. I had a few problem rolling out the discs. I’m not very good with a rolling pin (but getting better). The dough didn’t stick but it was easy to poke a hole in it . Too easy and you can’t patch it up after filling.
Tasting Impressions:
These are pretty good. The edges of the pies cooked darker than the filled section. No surprise there. I may not have fried them long enough or the filling was too wet (most likely both). I didn’t want that blackened crust taste so I might have pulled out early. The dark brown edges were delicious as was the rest of the crust. The inside filling was tasty but the combo needed something. Using store bought honey-dijon mustard as a dipping sauce was better than plain yellow mustard. What we in Idaho call “fry sauce” would have been perfect. I don’t have the recipe. It’s a spiced, slightly sweet mayonnaise. I’ll have to work on that. Then again, fry sauce is a secret.
[update]
I froze 3 of the pies and then a few days later, defrosted & reheated them in a 225 oven for an hour or so on a wire rack over a baking sheet to catch any oil drips. They were every bit as good. Not greasy at all. And very tasty. I will make these again and try a shallow pan fry or baking instead of the deep fry.