Beef Mince Pies
Introduced with beef mice pies around 10 years ago, when I was first arrived in Australia. I went to the famous Harry’s de wheel in Wooloomooloo, so they said that if you are in Sydney, you have to try their pie and hotdog varieties. Honestly, I don’t like the pies. It is not the actual pies that I hate but the extra strong smell of the beef meat itself. Gosh it smells like a goat that has not take bath in a week. I still love Harry’s de wheel hot dog though, especially the one with extra cheese sauce or chilli dog.
I don’t understand why, but the beef meat in Australia tastes very different to the one that I used to eat back in Indonesia. Probably it is because of the way of how Australian cooks them. They love their beef to be cooked as simple as possible, rare to medium rare, so they still can taste the actual beef. In comparison, Indonesian loves their beef to be transformed into a cuisine like Curry or Rendang. Curry or what we called Gulai is cooked for around 1 hour. Rendang is worst, it can be cooked for up to 2 hours, because the meat need to be so tender and soak all those herbs, juices, and coconut milk. You can’t really taste the beef that much, but you could enjoy the soaking herbs that immerse into the beef which are bathed in the thickened coconut milk. I guess, Australian or westerners really appreciates the taste of originality, and Indonesian prefers their meal to be a delicacy.
Originally I made beef mince pies because my toddler is a fussy eater. I want to make his meal interesting and different from the usual stuff that he had, but the most important is that I could put lots of vegetable goodness in it without him even noticed and I succeed. He loves the pies so much. Although making the pies could be time consuming especially if you don’t have ready rolled shortcrust pastry available and have to make everything from scratch, but it really worth trying. To eliminate the smell, I included the Rendang herb ( I did not write it down on the ingredient list) or what we called ‘bumbu rempah daging’ that I brought from Indonesia. The gravy powder also help to disguise the smell apart from smoothing up the mixture.
Ingredients
- olive oil for stir-frying
- 4 garlic cloves, minced
- 1 medium brown onion, minced
- 2 medium carrot, grated
- 500 gr lean beef mince
- 2 tbsp gravy powder
- 2 tbsp tomato paste
- 2 tbsp barbecue sauce
- ready rolled short crust pastry
- milk to brush
Instructions
- Heat oil in a frying pan. Add garlic and onion, and cook until fragrant.
- Add mince beef until brown, then add carrot. Cook until the carrot is tender.
- Stir in gravy powder and tomato paste. To smoothen the mixture, add a little bit of water. Stir until mixture thickens. Set aside to cool.
- Cut the ready rolled short crust pastry into round patty pans/muffin pans. Press the pastry into the pans so there is no bubble trap. Pour 1 tbsp of the mixture into the pan (depends on how big the pan is). Cover the pastry with another layer of pastry. Press the edges. Brush top with milk.
- Preheat the oven 180 C.
- Bake for 15 minutes or until the pastry is golden brown.
- Serve with tomato sauce.
Preparation time (duration): 60
Culinary tradition: American
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