The perfect pastry for pies, any type, great for hot pies and cold pork pies. Simple to make, easiest pastry to make.
At the bottom of this page I will put a video of me making Hot Water Pastry for steak and kidney with Guinness
300ml Water
250gm fat (butter or lard, I use half and half)
500gm flour. (I have used plain flour in the video below but these photos show me using rye flour)
Salt
Heat the water with the fat till the fat has melted.
Add the flour bit at a time and stir it in, you may think the water/fat won’t take all the flour but it will and probably more. As it gets thicker and cool enough to put your hands in use your hands to incorporate the flour, eventually tip it out of the pan and knead it like dough.
Let it cool till its just warm.
The pies I made with this pastry are Beef tongue and mushroom.
Cook the tongue in water with vegetables, I cooked mine over night in a slow cooker, the tongue takes about 6 hours.
Let the tongue cool and then peel off the skin. Pull the skin away from the meat using a knife where needed.
Blend the gravy and veg, I put a little of the tongue in the blender as well.
I used ramekins but you can make pies using this pastry by just shaping the pastry, I will try to remember to show how to do this another time, roll out the pastry and line the ramekins, don’t worry about the pastry breaking, just press more pastry into any holes or tears, unlike most pastries hot water pastry cut offs can be put back with the rest of the pastry. So cut out pastry and line the ramekins allowing the pastry to sit higher than the ramekins..
Chop the tongue add the mushrooms. put the meat filling into the ramekins and pour in the sauce
Cut out the lids, egg wash the edges of the raised edges of the pastry and mould the onto the lids. Put your hand on top of the pie and allow the heat of your hand to warm the pastry, turning the pastry, eventually the sides and lid will become as one.
Egg wash and bake at 200c
While it would have helped to time them I forgot, but a dark brown will be perfect, unless your going to use them straight away keep them in the ramekins, when cold they will freeze perfectly, allow to defrost before reheating.
Easy
Now for the video, enjoy.
