In the March issue of Martha Stewart Everyday Food, there is a recipe for Irish Beef Hand Pies.  These are little pastry pockets with a meat and veg filling. They reminded a lot of Cornish Pasties which a family friend used to serve at his New Orleans restaurant and of which  I have fond memories.

This recipe sounded pretty easy, so I was eager to give a go on a busy weeknight. Silly me.

I cut this recipe in half, so keep that in mind as you read. First, you cook potatoes and cabbage with a little oil. I really, really think it needs some onion, so if you make it, add some onion at this stage. Once that is cooked, you add ground beef. Then some tomato paste, Worchestershire, thyme, water and salt and pepper. You cook it for about 15 minutes.

Next you are supposed to roll out a pie crust into a 14 inch square. The recipe says to use homemade or store-bought. I had a store bought pie crust and I attempted to roll it out and it ripped and shredded and was quite thin. I ended up tossing that in the garbage and making one from scratch. This should have been no problem – I’ve been making pie crust with the same recipe since I was about 10. However, this time, something was wrong with it. It did not form a ball in the Cuisinart like it is supposed to. At this point, I was not going to start over yet again, so I decided to just go with it. I did get it rolled out to about the right size, but after I put my filling on it and tried to fold it, it simply shredded. Complete disaster.  I made it work though since I had to get dinner on the table.

As you can see, they were not pretty looking. As for taste? Well, onion is definitely missing. I felt that in general they were kind of bland and dry. I would like the filling to be moister. However, if that’s the case, then the dough needs to be thicker so it doesn’t get soggy.

Overall, I was not impressed with these at all.

In the March issue of Martha Stewart Everyday Food, there is a recipe for Irish Beef Hand Pies.  These are little pastry pockets with a meat and veg filling. They reminded a lot of Cornish Pasties which a family friend used to serve at his New Orleans restaurant and of which  I have fond memories. … Read more →