 Chicken and rabbit meat pie | |
| Type | Savory pie |
|---|---|
| Main ingredients | Meat, pastry |
A meat pie is a pie with a filling of meat and often with other savory ingredients. They are found in cuisines worldwide.
Meat pies are usually baked, fried, or deep fried to brown them and develop the flavour through the Maillard reaction. [1] Many varieties have a flaky crust due to the incorporation of butter to develop a flaky texture when baking.
The origins of the meat pie have been traced back to the Neolithic period, around 6000 BC. [2] Versions of what are now known as pies were featured on ancient Egyptian tomb walls, and in ancient Greek and Roman texts. [3]
The ancient Egyptians' diet featured basic pies made from oat, wheat, rye, and barley, filled with honey and baked over hot coals. [2] The Greeks used a flour-water paste resembling pie pastry, and filled it with meat. [4] These pies were usually fried or cooked under coals. The Romans adopted the Greek creations, using a variety of meats, oysters, mussels, lampreys, and fish as filling and a mixture of flour, oil, and water for the crust. [4] This 'pastry' cover was not meant to be eaten and was discarded. [3] [4]
In Northern Europe, cooks made pastry with lard and butter to make a stiff dough that could hold an upright pie. [5] These medieval pastry dishes were called "coffins/coffyns", that is, a basket or box, and were savory meat pies with the crusts or pastry being tall, straight-sided with sealed-on floors and lids. Open-crust pastry (not tops or lids) were known as "traps." These pies held assorted meats and sauce components and were baked more like a modern casserole with no pan (the crust itself was the pan, its pastry tough and inedible). These crusts were often made several inches thick to withstand many hours of baking. [6]
Some historians[ who? ] suggest the tough, almost inedible, crust was given to the servants while the lords and ladies of the house ate the contents. [4]
This pastry became a common dish in medieval times, and by the 14th century, came to be called a "pye" or "pie". Between 1387 and 1400, Geoffrey Chaucer wrote, in The Canterbury Tales , of a cook who "koude rooste, and sethe, and broille, and frye / Máken mortreux, and wel bake a pye". [3] The etymology of the word is unknown, but may be related to the magpie (also called "pie"), perhaps because both were spotted, or because the bird collects miscellaneous articles, and almost anything can be wrapped in pastry and cooked. [7] [3]
The French and Italians specialized in redefining the pastry of the pie, making it flakier and tastier by new methods of adding butter, rolling, and folding the dough. In 1440, the Paris pastry guild was recognized and started to expand their product—and so something like the modern day crust began to be used. [4]
Pies were not popular in the United States until the 1800s,[ dubious ] and today most pies in the United States are meatless and sweet, except for pot pie. [5] In Canada, on the other hand, both English and French meat pie traditions have persisted, notably the iconic tourtière of French Canada.
The Natchitoches meat pie is one of the official state foods of the US state of Louisiana. [8]
The Nigerian meat pie, which evolved from the pasty, can be baked or fried with varied fillings such as minced beef with potatoes and carrots. [9]
Latin American meat empanadas may be pies or more often pasties; different pastry shells and fillings are used, and they may be baked or fried. Empanadas usually contain much onion and green or red pepper, in combination with meat or fish. Empanada dough takes many forms, from those made with cornmeal to puff pastry. [10] Ground beef with olives, fried egg, pulled pork, diced steak, even cheese and salami are used in countries such as Chile, Argentina, Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Puerto Rico and Peru.[ citation needed ]
The Australian version of Irish steak and Guinness pie has a filling of round steak with Guinness Stout Beer, bacon, and onions. It is served with potato chips and vegetables and is popular in Irish pubs. In Australia, the meat pie is a common convenience food often found in petrol stations, pubs, restaurants, bakeries, supermarkets and convenience stores.
Middle Eastern meat pies are called sfiha and contain ground beef, olive oil, plain yogurt, tahini, allspice, onion, tomatoes and pine nuts. Greek meat pies are called kreatopita and contain ground beef, onions and feta cheese. The filling for kreatopita is wrapped in phyllo dough. Indian meat pies are called samosa and usually contain peas, spiced potatoes, coriander, lentils, or ground beef or chicken and are often served with chutney.
In Turkmenistan, a meat pie is called ishlekli or a shepherd's pie. Traditionally, ishlekli was baked by shepherds, who buried it in the hot sand of the Turkmen desert and coals. Today, ishlekli is mostly baked in the oven, but the traditional method is still preserved by the Turkmen shepherds. [11]
Pastry is baked food made with a dough of flour, water, and shortening that may be savoury or sweetened. Sweetened pastries are often described as bakers' confectionery. The word "pastries" suggests many kinds of baked products made from ingredients such as flour, sugar, milk, butter, shortening, baking powder, and eggs. Small tarts and other sweet baked products are called pastries as a synecdoche. Common pastry dishes include pies, tarts, quiches, croissants, and pasties.
A pie is a baked dish which is usually made of a pastry dough casing that contains a filling of various sweet or savoury ingredients. Sweet pies may be filled with fruit, nuts, fruit preserves, brown sugar, sweetened vegetables, or with thicker fillings based on eggs and dairy. Savoury pies may be filled with meat, eggs and cheese or a mixture of meat and vegetables.
Pirozhki are foremost, Russian baked or fried yeast-leavened boat-shaped buns with a variety of fillings. Pirozhki are a popular street food and comfort food in Eastern Europe.
An empanada is a type of baked or fried turnover consisting of pastry and filling, common in Spain, other Southern European countries, Latin American countries, and the Philippines. The name comes from the Spanish empanar, and translates as 'breaded', that is, wrapped or coated in bread. They are made by folding dough over a filling, which may consist of meat, cheese, tomato, corn, or other ingredients, and then cooking the resulting turnover, either by baking or frying.
Ukrainian cuisine is the collection of the various cooking traditions of the people of Ukraine, one of the largest and most populous European countries. It is heavily influenced by the rich dark soil (chornozem) from which its ingredients come, and often involves many components. Traditional Ukrainian dishes often experience a complex heating process – "at first they are fried or boiled, and then stewed or baked. This is the most distinctive feature of Ukrainian cuisine".
A rissole is a small patty enclosed in pastry or rolled in breadcrumbs, usually baked or deep fried. The filling has savory ingredients, most often minced meat, fish or cheese, and is served as an entrée, main course, or side dish.
A pot pie, in US and Canadian dialects, is a type of meat pie with a top pie crust that is commonly used throughout the continent, consisting of flaky pastry. Pot pies may be made with a variety of fillings including poultry, beef, seafood, or plant-based meat substitute fillings, and may also differ in the types of crust.
A turnover is a type of pastry made by placing a filling on a piece of dough, folding the dough over, sealing it, and then baking it. Turnovers can be sweet or savoury and are often made as a sort of portable meal or dessert. They are often eaten for breakfast.
A bridie or Forfar bridie is a Scottish meat pasty that originates from Forfar, Scotland.
A curry puff is a snack of Southeast Asian origin. It is a small pie consisting of curry with chicken and potatoes in a deep-fried or baked pastry shell. The consistency of the curry is quite thick to prevent it from oozing out of the snack. Pap or puff reflects the Fujian Chinese dialect 泡 ('pop'), which means 'bubble, blister, puffed'. It is a truly Southeast Asian snack as it has Indian, Chinese or Malay elements.
Kue is a Southeast Asian bite-sized snack or dessert, especially in Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore. Kue or kuih are fairly broad terms in the Malay archipelago to describe a wide variety of snacks including cakes, cookies, fritters, pies, scones, and patisserie. Kue are made from a variety of ingredients in various forms; some are steamed, fried or baked. They are popular snacks in the Malay archipelago, which has the largest variety of kue. Because of the archipelago's historical colonial ties, Koeé (kue) is also popular in the Netherlands.
The Natchitoches meat pie is a regional meat pie from northern Louisiana, in the United States. It is one of the official state foods of Louisiana.
Chilean cuisine stems mainly from the combination of traditional Spanish cuisine, Chilean Mapuche culture and local ingredients, with later important influences from other European cuisines, particularly from Germany, the United Kingdom and France. The food tradition and recipes in Chile are notable for the variety of flavours and ingredients, with the country's diverse geography and climate hosting a wide range of agricultural produce, fruits and vegetables. The long coastline and the peoples' relationship with the Pacific Ocean add an immense array of seafood to Chilean cuisine, with the country's waters home to unique species of fish, molluscs, crustaceans and algae, thanks to the oxygen-rich water carried in by the Humboldt Current. Chile is also one of the world's largest producers of wine and many Chilean recipes are enhanced and accompanied by local wines. The confection dulce de leche was invented in Chile and is one of the country's most notable contributions to world cuisine.
Speķrauši or speķa pīrādziņi, sometimes also colloquially known simply as pīrāgi or pīrādziņi, are Latvian oblong or crescent-shaped baked bread rolls or pastries filled with finely chopped fatty bacon cubes and onions. They range from five to thirteen centimetres in length, depending on if they are intended as a snack or a more substantial meal. Smaller speķrauši are often prized for their daintiness and are considered the work of a skilled cook.
Regional street food is street food that has commonalities within a region or culture.
Texan cuisine is the food associated with the Southern U.S. state of Texas, including its native Southwestern cuisine influenced Tex-Mex foods. Texas is a large state, and its cuisine has been influenced by a wide range of cultures, including Tejano/Mexican, Native American, Creole/Cajun, African-American, German, Czech, Southern and other European American groups.
Dumpling is a broad class of dishes that consist of pieces of cooked dough, often wrapped around a filling. The dough can be based on bread, wheat or other flours, or potatoes, and it may be filled with meat, fish, tofu, cheese, vegetables, or a combination. Dumplings may be prepared using a variety of cooking methods and are found in many world cuisines.
Samsa (Kazakh: самса, Kyrgyz: самса, Uyghur: سامسا, Uzbek: сомса, somsa, Turkmen: somsa, Turkish: Sambusek, Tajik: самбӯса, romanized: sambüsa Persian: سمبوسه is a savoury pastry in Central Asian cuisines. It represents a bun stuffed with meat and sometimes with vegetables.
