Hello everyone!
Happy Christmas Eve!!! Even though this isn't a Christmas recipe lol, I figured I'd finally make a blog-post about one of my favorite recipes, the Nigerian meat-pie. It is a very popular snack in Nigeria, because it is tasty and moist! PS If you're pescatarian, you could easily substitute ground beef with fish. Now, on to the recipe..
Total Time: 1 hr 45 mins
Prep Time: 1 hr
Bake Time: 40-45 mins
Yield: This depends on the size of the cutter you use. If your cutter is 10 inches in diameter, you'll make about 10 meat pies.
INGREDIENTS
For the Dough
- 7 cups of All Purpose Flour
- 2 teaspoons of Baking Powder
- 4 cups of Butter (Margarine)
- I tablespoon of sugar (or 2 pinches of Salt)
- 1/2 cup of cold water
For the Meat Filling
- 2 medium Irish Potatoes (optional)
- 1/2 a cup of Frozen Vegetables (optional)
- 4 cups of Ground Beef (Minced Meat)
- 1 medium sized onion
- 2 cooking spoons of Coconut Oil (or Vegetable, Canola, Olive Oil)
- 2 Maggi/Knorr Cubes
- 1 teaspoon of Thyme
- 1 teaspoon of Pepper
- 1 teaspoon of Curry
- 1 teaspoon of Garlic Powder
- 1 teaspoon of Ginger
- Salt (to taste)
- 2 teaspoons of Flour
- 1 cup of water
Ornamental Ingredients
DIRECTIONS
Meat-pie Filling:
Step 1: Peel the potatoes, wash them and cut it into tiny cubes.
Step 2: Slice the onions
Step 3: On medium heat, heat your cooking oil in a pot, and stir in the diced onions.
Step 4: Stir in the ground beef vigorously until it turns pale
Step 5: Add all of the seasoning, and stir.
Step 6: Add one cup of water
Step 7: Cover the pot and once the contents start boiling add in frozen mixed veggies (optional), and potatoes (optional) and cook until it is all done.
Step 8: Mix the tablespoons of flour in half a cup of cold water and add to the meat-pie filling. This is to ensure that the filling does not dry up during baking.
Step 9: Stir the contents and turn off the heat.
Time for the dough, the fun part! :D
Meat-Pie Dough:
Step 1: Put the flour in a mixing bowl. Add 2 teaspoons of baking powder and the sugar (or salt). Mix well!
Step 2: Use a tablespoon to put the margarine into the bowl of flour.
Step 3: Using your finger tips, rub the margarine into the flour, till its like crumbs (look
here). Do not use melted butter!
Step 4: Add cold water in little amounts, while folding the mix until it turns into a ball of dough is formed. (look
here).
Step 5: Knead the dough well, and leave to rest for 5 minutes, this makes it more elastic.
Cutting the Dough
Step 1: Set your oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit, and leave it to preheat.
Step 2: Rub some of your margarine on the insides of your oven tray and set aside.
Step 3: Break your egg, whisk it, and set aside
Step 4: Knead the dough until it's quite thin (not too thin).
Step 5: Use a cutter (this could be a bowl turned upside down, or a tea cup turned upside down, and cut around it), to make round cuts on the rolled out dough.
Step 6: Put some meat-pie filling into the center of the cuts (look
here).
Step 7: Rub the edges of the meat pie cut with eggs, before folding it. This is to make sure the meat pie is sealed and doesn't open up during baking.
Step 8: Fold one part of the dough to meet the other, and use a fork to press the edges together to close tightly. (Refer to pictures below,
here and
here).
PC: Okalo Ikhena
Step 9: Rub the egg of the meat pies using a cooking brush (honestly, I just used my hands). This gives the meat pie a golden brown look when done. I didn't rub enough on my meat-pies, but normally it should look like the picture below (I made those a while back. Excuse the somewhat low quality picture, took it with my iPhone haha).
Step 10: Set the meat-pies on the tray, and place the tray in the preheated oven, allowing it to bake for 30-40 minutes. Once it starts browning, you know it's almost done! (Open the oven to check).
And you're done! So I found a similar British recipe I want to try out. I might not make another blogpost since it is so similar to this one, but if you're interested, look
here.
Also, my apologies for not putting up pictures of each step, I am still getting around having pictures taken while I bake, I get carried away haha. I'll try to include steps in my next post! If you have any questions, leave a comment below or shoot me an email at ikhena@me.com :)
Later on that night, my sister made Lemon and Blueberry Pancakes, so delish!!! (Check out this recipe
here, made it sometime ago) and I decided to capture the moment :). (Well my brother took all the pictures, what would I do without his photography skills? Lol).
Photo Credit: Okalo Ikhena
Bon Apetit,
Onivie
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