Rich’s Game Changer Pie
Rich’s Red Wine and Venison Pie
This week Rich is changing up the game with his delicious red wine and venison pie.
This pie is the perfect winter warmer, filled to the brim with tender chunks of venison, marinated in red wine and encased with golden brown, buttery pastry. Yummy!
This recipe makes six pies (whether you share them is up to you).
Step-Pie-Step Guide
For perfect, crumbly pie pastry you will need:
- 500g plain flour
- 1 egg
- 175g lard
- 200ml water
- 10g salt
Then you’ll ‘knead’ to follow the below steps:
- Pop your flour, egg and salt into a large bowl and mix together.
- Next in a saucepan, bring your water and lard to the boil.
- Then combine your two mixtures to create your dough.
- Knead your dough for two to three minutes, then voila all ready! Onto your filling…
Creating your filling…
- Place venison in a large bowl and cover with red wine and leave to marinate in the fridge overnight.
- In the morning drain the red wine from your meat and then keep to one side for later.
- Next, set your oven to 150 degrees.
- Finely dice the shallots and garlic, sweat off in a casserole pan in a little oil and add the thyme.
- Whilst your shallots and garlic are sweating, roll your diced venison plain flour and shake off any excess.
- In a hot frying pan brown off the meat, in oil, in batches. Do not add too much at once as it will sweat instead of browning.
- Once brown on leave to one side.
- In the same pan used to brown the meat, add the red wine (saved from earlier) and reduce by half.
- Add the meat and red wine to your casserole pan, then add your chicken stock and bring to the boil. You might need to add a touch more water to make sure the meat in completely covered.
- Add a cartouche on top and the lid.
- Braise in the oven for 90 minutes or until meat is tender.
- Once cooked remove from the oven and drain the meat.
- Reduce the sauce until thickened then pass the sauce through a fine sieve back onto the meat.
- Cut the bacon into lardons and fry off in the pan until crispy. Drain off any excess fat and add to the venison mix.
- In the same pan, brown off the button onions and add to the mix.
- Dice the leek and sweat off in a pan until tender. Drain off any liquid and again add to the mix.
- Season the mix to taste with salt. Allow to cool the room temperature before building the pies.
Building and baking…
- First things first, pre-heat your oven to 180 degrees.
- Next butter and flour your pie moulds.
- Then cut 6 x 130g balls of pastry for your bases.
- Leave the rest of the pastry to one side, these will make your lids (or pie hats if you’re feeling fancy).
- Roll your balls out until 1mm thick.
- Place a cross of parchment across your pastry and then lift into your pie mould and press into the edges. Leave no air in your moulds, and becareful not to tear your pastry, otherwise your super tasty filling will escape when cooking.
- Weigh 180g of your yummy filling into each pie.
- Then trim the edges of your lined moulds with the back of a small knife.
- Roll out your remaining pastry to a 2mm thickness and cut to the same width of your pie mould.
- Once cut, roll the lid out so it’s slightly bigger than the mould.
- Brush the edge of the pie with egg yolk, then place lid on top and seal.
- Crimp the edge of your pie using your finger and thumb. Make sure there are no gaps and take the to time to make sure the crimping is neat.
- Brush the lid in all the gaps with egg yolk, this will give them a nice golden brown finish.
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- Bake at 180°C for 40 minutes or until golden brown.
- Once your pies are baked leave in their moulds and place on a cooling rack, or enjoy straight away.
- Bon ap-pie-tite everyone!
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