Brian's Easy Meat Pies

My brother-in-law Brian spent the week of the wedding with us and brought to our attention new products, recipes, and businesses that I will share with my readers. Today, we will be talking meat pies. Brian loves Natchitoches Meat Pies which are not available in Bluffton, South Carolina. He came up with an easy and delicious alternative to the ever so difficult pastry.

 Goya makes a pastry that they refer to as discs that can be used to make latin empanadillas, fruit pies, etc. They come 10 to a pack and are frozen. Defrost to use - the discs are separated by paper which make them very easy to work with. (Note: We started working with the dough before it was completely defrosted - make sure you wait till they are completely thawed.) I have not found these in town as of yet but I will let you know who carries them.

 We started with one pound of ground chuck and one pound of ground pork.

We cut up (finely)  a bunch of green onions and not quite a whole bell pepper. There was some discussion at the table about omitting the bell pepper. In Louisiana cooking there is always a discussion - Michael and I liked the bell pepper and my son, Andrew did not dislike it but thought it would not be missed because of its strong flavor.

We added 1 pod of garlic minced (I used the garlic in a jar). The title of the post says Easy - right?

We put it altogether in a cast iron skillet with a teaspoon of Crisco. Add salt, pepper, and red pepper flakes (ground). This is the most important statement in the recipe - " When meat is done but NOT dry, remove from heat." When you remove from heat add 1 tablespoon of flour and stir well.

 We used the second Meat Pie recipe (page 6) in the Cane River Cuisine Cookbook.

Brian had suggesting getting one of these little crimping devices - while he was here we actually discovered 2 sets of these while going through a storage unit of a family member. They made the assembly effortless and easy. 

Michael dropped these in hot peanut oil and deep fried until golden brown. Thank you Brian - the pastry was awesome and now I can easily make meat pies till the cows come home. 

Readers - let me know how you like your meat pies. Do you do something special? Do you use bell pepper? Please comment....... I am very interested in this topic.

Enjoying a rainy day, Tina