The Best Gluten Free Pies to make at home!
The Best Gluten Free Pies
What is the best gluten free pie that you can have? I'm Angela from gluten free, Angela, and I'm gonna be sharing exactly what their best pies have been this week. , gluten free. And pies. You don't normally get that in the same conversation, do you? Or certainly not the same sentence. However, this week I have been creating, so what of my favorite pies being well, all will be revealed on today's podcast, so I dunno about you.
The one thing I love when it starts to change from summer to winter is having wonderful pies. And that's something that we always used to create when I was younger and, um, going gluten free, you think? Oh dear. Well, anyway. Couple of shows ago, I shared what my favorite pastries were and in case you didn't listen to them, it listened to them.
On that show, it was actually Sue's gluten free pastry. It's frozen, it's great. She can just use it straight from the freezer. , There's a normal one and there's an almond one that I've never actually tried yet. And I also use the Morrison's one. However, sometimes I do go in the kitchen and I do like my own pastry, and when I do that, there is a little secret and here is the secret.
The secret to making beautiful gluten free pastry. And it works with a lot. The recipes out there and I always share my own recipes eventually, , is to actually grate. The or grater grate, the butter or the, , margarine that you're using, the block margarine. , I don't suggest using the soft margarine, but if you've got nothing else, just go ahead and use it.
And I tend to find that what happens then is you get these tiny little pockets and that's tiny little pockets of fat in, in that whole mixture, the pastry mix. And something incredible happens when you get. , because of the lightness of the flours that you are using, I just find that if you put in lumps of lard or butter or whatever you are using, it doesn't really combine.
And the way to get a much lighter, flaky, shorter pastry is to greater it. So there you go. There is my secret to my own pastry when I actually make it. So I do make gluten free pastry and. Another little tip as well. I always find that recipes that have an egg in them work really well . So gratering the butter or the margarine and also putting an egg in them really seems to help combine and make it crispy and short and light and lovely.
However, it's not just about pastry today, it's also about , what pies we can make. So, earlier this week, The reason I thought this week's podcast is going to be about pies, , is because I went into a shop and I bought a joint of beef and there was another little joint of beef sitting there. So I decided to get that one as well and I thought, I will do something with it.
I didn't quite know what was gonna do with it. So we had the beef one evening and we had a lovely Sunday dinner midweek actually. And then I thought, Oh, what should I do with this small joint of beef? I thought, I know I will make a lovely steak pie. So here is the quick check to make an a steak pie. If you've got a , cooker, and I don't use mine very often, I must say, , however, When I want to cook beef, I do use a slow cooker.
So here's my, and do this a little bit differently to most people. So onions thick, put on the bottom, herb, just mixed herbs about. One and a half teaspoons of herbs, putting some black pepper as well. , and about three bay leaves. I always try and get a lot of bay leaves in there. And what I did was I put the whole joint in. Now a lot of people, and they're making a pie, will cook them into chunks, but I don't, So anyway, I stood, I, I just put a little bit of salt and pepper on the outside of the joint and stuck it in there, covered it in water, and that was, I left it to boil for a little while and, and the thing is, you've got some pepper in there, there's a little bit of water and the beef will just take some of that. , That in there. Now, if you want to put in a stock cube, you can do, it was quite a, it wasn't a really big thick joint. It was quite a flat little joint, if you know what I mean. , so it didn't need much water to cover it, but because the herbs, there's like fine.
And I like that to cook for a few hours. , and you really need to have a look at the, the weight, but I just tend to put it on high, get the thing hot. , and then what I will do is I, I will turn it down, but I always cook a joint for about six hours and. Then I just let it cool down and then the following day I took it outta the, the stock, the water, et cetera.
As I said, I'd only put, only put like, , onion in there. If you got other things, you know, stick it in there. Can put a few, a couple of carrots, a little bit of, , celery. It's entirely up to you, but this is just what I did. Cause it's what was there. So then I peeled off. , the fat and the fat will render it down and it will puts and flavoring into, that's one two inch chunk. Now it's cold because it's had time to sort of cool down overnight. , so anyway, this made some big chunks of meat. And then what I did was I got all of that stock and put it into a pan and I actually let it boil up and. This is the trick, okay? In gluten free world, there's so many little tricks and things that make our life easy.
So what I use to make gravy, and that's what we're doing now. We're making a gravy aren't to go this beautiful steak in pie. , and I use gravy salt. It's under a pound for a little box and it will last you forever. The supermarket that I find it in is in Morrison's, Just look gravy salt. It's been around for about, well, probably not a hundred years, but a long, long time and it's just incredible. Gravy, salt is really, really good stuff. And, and it's so underrated. People use stock cubes when buy stock cubes or when you like, you can't use all of them. Can you? Um, you don't actually know what's in them, just really, really good. So how it's going, but there's salt cornflower caramel in there. That's it. Uh, I have checked a couple of times. It's gluten free, so that's what I use. I keep checking, you know, every year or so just to make sure that it's still group gluten free. And what I do is I start to sprinkle some of that. Into that stock.
And what it will do is you've got the, the juice from the meat in there. You've also got the, the flavorings of the herbs, the salt, the pepper, and the bay leaves. And what you then gonna do is add this gravy salt into it and it will start to brown it and keep tasting so you crumbled a little bit off into the, into the stock that you're making.
And we're gonna turn that into a gravy. So when that starts to get to the taste that you actually want, be careful because it is gravy salt, so you don't want to keep adding and cause then you'll just have too much salt in there. And when you get to the taste that you actually like, what you gonna do then is you gonna get the corn flour out and you gonna add a couple of teaspoons of cornflower.
Now, I dunno how much stock you've got there. Um, Just use it so it creates a really thick gravy. And then the final thing that I do, final thing that I do, so I've got the consistency that I want think just to make it look little bit more like normal gravy. I get some milk out the fridge. If you don't wanna use cow milk, you can use another milk and put a couple of splashes of milk in there.
They sound like what you put in tea and it just changes it from. Dark, clear, watery, gloop that always served up something really nice. So touch and suddenly will look really nice color. So what you want then is let that gravy cool. Okay. So then we're gonna get the, , I dunno if you're from up north or not, but up north.
We have this saying of a plated dye and you use something like an a tin, enamel plate, or it may be a plate that goes in the oven, but you will put pastry on the bottom of the plate and you put that in in just to start to cook the base of the pastry. So you might want to put baking beans on on the top.
If you want to use a pie tin, you can do, but I really like plated pies. , so anyway, it's up to you which one you use. It's entirely up to you. So then, , I took it out of the oven, let it cool down, and then I put all these big chunks of beef on. On this plated pipe. Then I put the cool gravy on top of that, and then I put another layer of beautiful pastry on top.
Now with your pastry, when it's on top, make sure you crimp around the edges. Don't have to you just so it's sealed, but do put a knife through the top so the steam can escape. If not, you'll just end up with huge. Right? Um, Balloon within , the pastry where the air is trying to get out. So do make sure that you just put a hole in the top of the pie and then cook that for about half an hour and you just want it to be on a, a medium heat.
160 180 depends on your oven. Every oven's different. , so just be relaxed about this. But honestly, I suddenly realized how often do we go past. Something that's reduced or something that's more of a scrag end. You know, we only have to look at scrag end of um, , lamb and all of these cuts. Every so often you get a real good deal on them.
And I made the most delicious beef pie that we had for two meals. And it was delicious, absolutely delicious. It was big chunks, and when I compared it to a pie that I bought online, it was a medium pie, which is quite small pie. Actually. It was only about centimeter deep. It was fine, it tasted nice, but honestly, the beef inside it was tiny, tiny, tiny chunks.
And honestly, That pie was out of this world. I think the, the beef probably cost me about five pounds. Then I've got the pastry that cost me about three pounds. Then I've got a couple of onions, which were just in the bottom of the, , fridge. I've got a little bit of bro salt, I've got a little bit of water, I've got some bay leaves, got some herbs.
So to put that together to make an incredible big pie that does give for two big meals, , I don't think was. And you know what, when it comes up to Christmas, you will, as you walk around, you will find that there will be offers, things going close to the sell by date, things that you get a little bit of a bargain on.
And , this is one of those things. I just saw this lonely, tiny little, joint, And I thought, that's not actually big enough to do proper joint, you know, for a dinner. I thought that would be a little bit small, so let me try and convert it into a pie. And honestly it was, it was enough. I had thought, do I need to put some potatoes in there to absolutely delicious.
So we had the first, what I will say, steak pie of autumn. No say of them. We're not quite Easter, aren't we? Um, but of Autumn. And when it comes to autumn and pies, there's nothing quite like it. So anyway, we had our first pie, but that wasn't it because then I went on,, and I popped into a, a shop I've never been in before.
Now this store is, , in one of the neighboring towns to where I live, and there are a lot of shops there where people come from around the world. And this was a Hungarian I will. It said Hungarian shop. It was more like a Hungarian deli. I went in and there was all this beautiful fresh bread. Of course, I can't touch any of it, there was like alcohol. There were fresh vegetables. There were the most beautiful, big, big, big, big apples. , there was the little bit frozen section at the back. And as I looked and in that frozen section, suddenly my eyes just popped out on stocks because. Sitting in the most beautiful little squares, honestly.
Nice, beautiful little squares. Were these, meggi, cherries? It's a little box of cherries. It just says that from the eu, but this was amazing. , so. What I would say is go in, have a look at the what you can get. And the reason why I absolutely love these were they're sour cherries. And as I got the, , the counter the to pay, she says they, they're sour cherries.
Yes, I know. I love them. And we don't have many sour cherries in the uk. It's more of the a European delicacy. So the fact I got these, they're frozen. There are some pips in them as well. Some, some of the, in the middle. , so do be careful. , but what I did was I just used one pack. I actually got two packs, but I used one pack exactly same.
I like put the pastry in the pie tin and then with the cherries, what I did was I popped them in a pan to heat them up. If you want to make sure there isn't, there isn't a stone in there. What you need to do is just put a knife through every single, , cherry to see if the pips are, if the stones are gone.
For me, because it was all adults eating it, I wasn't really bothered to just warn people before. If there's any stones, be careful with your teeth, um, and you can decide which camp you're on. Do you do, do you take every single pip out of the Cherries? Or not. , I think it's quite nice and quite nice little discovery.
So anyway, put them in a, a little pan. heated them up gen gently. And then I put three teaspoons of corn flour in to, You'll have to gauge how much liquid is in this now. For me, it took about three teaspoons and I then of corn flour just to get a beautiful, rich, thick syrup, cuz I didn't want water. I wanted to create the juice.
And then, I put in only, and this is because I love this sour. Of the cherries, and I don't want to make them overly sweet. So I put about one and a half teaspoons of, of a golden sugar in there and just like that mix together. So suddenly it went from having a syrup, like water on there, just a juice to having a thick syrup, , sauce.
And also there was a little bit of sweetness in the, in the source. So this was one pack, 300 grams of frozen, , sour cherries. Now I know that you can get cherries all over the place, but I was just so excited that these were sour cherries., and the same, the, the steak pie, We're just gonna make pie and we're going to put actually another little secret for you.
I did actually change this. I didn't do it exactly the same. So what I actually did, Put the, the pastry on the bottom of the plate. I then put it in the oven to heat. I put my, my, , baking beans on there, just stop it. , uh, all puffing up. But then when I took it out and I was ready to put this juice in, I, I let the pastry go cold, first of all.
, and the reason for that is you don't want hot and cold. And if you put hot and top of hot, I find when it goes into the oven, I'm not a great fan of it. So I tend. Bake all of my pies that I let the pie crust go cold. I let the filling go cold, and then everything going into that oven, the, the base, the middle, and the topping are all cool.
So everything's got to start to get to the right temperature to cook, and if the base and the middle are hot, And you then put a cold topping on, You're trying to heat the, you're trying to bake the top of the pie, and it's really easy for the top of the pie not to be quite cooked. So that's why I do it that way.
So we've got the, I've allowed like the, the pastry base to cool. I then added a sprinkling no more than a teaspoon of ground rice. And the reason why I use ground rice is if it gets too moist in there, it will start to soak up the moisture. So I just put some cherries, all the cherries on the middle, and then put the topping on there, and I then put it into 1 60, 180.
, Into the oven. Remember to cut a hole in the top, so just to prick it with a knife so that all of that heat can can get outta the pie. It was absolutely delicious. Now you can put an egg wash on top. You can sprinkle some caster sugar on top. All of them are lovely, but I just wanted pure pastry. And pure sour cherries, and it was lovely.
The pastry was not sweet. The sour cherries weren't sweet, but what I did do was put lashings and I mean lashings of custard on top. It was absolutely incredible. So when we all had a piece of this pie, and we had the pie last night, I found. One, , stone. My mom found two stones and my hubby found three stones, so that's quite amusing.
But this what, this what I've, in the last few days as.
We have to stop being snobby about pastry and , having to make everything else else. Cause we don't have to make everything ourselves do we? , so that's why I have that in my freezer, , all the time just in case I need to make, pastry because if I have an idea, I want to do it there, and then if I have to make it, then put it in the fridge for an hour to chill before I, I just find it so much easier.
It's actually a lot easier to roll out. One thing that I will say is you still do have to use two layers of grease proof to roll. Anything else when it comes to pastry, gluten-free world. It's gonna be so sticky. It's not like normal pastry. . , but you put your one layer of, um, grease paper, then you put your pastry on it, then you put another layer, and then you start to roll out.
It will crack, it will flop. It doesn't matter. It's more pliable. It's not like gluten pastry where you've got to be really careful how you handle it. This stuff you can re-roll and re-roll and re-roll. It'll be fine, . So anyway, that's, , what we did last week. So, I was just so excited when I found these sour cherries and, and I do think in, in the uk, which is where I'm based, we don't actually celebrate cherries enough.
We just don't. , you know, if you go out somewhere, there'll be apple pie, apple crumble for the gluten people. If you are looking enough to have a gluten-free restaurant, you may have the, the gluten-free stuff there. There tends to be apple. Very, very rarely do we see cherries out there. So it was just so exciting for me to make a cherry pie.
, and you know, it doesn't stop there. Think about when you ate gluten and you could make a pie, a beautiful almond , frangipane. , You can do that again. Stick some sour cherries in there. It will be out of this world. It really will be because if you, as long as you're using, a ready rolled a packet pastry and the two I mentioned before are Sue's frozen pastry, Morrison's packet pastry.
These are the ones that I use that resemble. Resemble proper pastry, you know that all the people are happy to eat as well. , so these are the ones that I actually like and, uh, they're really, really, really quite exciting because then as you get an idea, if you think, Oh, treacle tart. Um, I've got some, we can use our own bread crumbs, our gluten free bed bread crumbs up if that's what you want to do and have a go.
, if you want to make a bakewell tart, you can do, because all of the things that. We used to make, we can still make, we just have to know what to use. So pastry was always, I always found that pastry was just as hard as nails. It wasn't flaky, it wasn't rich, it didn't taste nice, It didn't taste buttery. But you can put a beautiful egg, egg wash on top of.
You can sprinkle some. , if you're making an apple pie, sprinkle a little bit of cinnamon and sugar on top of the egg wash. It just transforms it and you can still do all of these things. , there's a lot, and I mean, a lot of bad pastry out there, and I think I've tried most of them and, and there's some.
I've just thrown, straight the bin. It might taste okay, but it looks...
Transcript
What is the best gluten free pie that you can have?
Speaker:I'm Angela from gluten free, Angela, and I'm gonna be sharing exactly what
Speaker:their best pies have been this week.
Speaker:, gluten free.
Speaker:And pies.
Speaker:You don't normally get that in the same conversation, do you?
Speaker:Or certainly not the same sentence.
Speaker:However, this week I have been creating, so what of my favorite pies
Speaker:being well, all will be revealed on today's podcast, so I dunno about you.
Speaker:The one thing I love when it starts to change from summer to
Speaker:winter is having wonderful pies.
Speaker:And that's something that we always used to create when I was younger
Speaker:and, um, going gluten free, you think?
Speaker:Oh dear.
Speaker:Well, anyway.
Speaker:Couple of shows ago, I shared what my favorite pastries were
Speaker:and in case you didn't listen to them, it listened to them.
Speaker:On that show, it was actually Sue's gluten free pastry.
Speaker:It's frozen, it's great.
Speaker:She can just use it straight from the freezer.
Speaker:, There's a normal one and there's an almond one that I've never actually tried yet.
Speaker:And I also use the Morrison's one.
Speaker:However, sometimes I do go in the kitchen and I do like my own pastry,
Speaker:and when I do that, there is a little secret and here is the secret.
Speaker:The secret to making beautiful gluten free pastry.
Speaker:And it works with a lot.
Speaker:The recipes out there and I always share my own recipes
Speaker:eventually, , is to actually grate.
Speaker:The or grater grate, the butter or the, , margarine that you're
Speaker:using, the block margarine.
Speaker:, I don't suggest using the soft margarine, but if you've got nothing
Speaker:else, just go ahead and use it.
Speaker:And I tend to find that what happens then is you get these tiny little pockets and
Speaker:that's tiny little pockets of fat in, in that whole mixture, the pastry mix.
Speaker:And something incredible happens when you get.
Speaker:, because of the lightness of the flours that you are using, I just
Speaker:find that if you put in lumps of lard or butter or whatever you are
Speaker:using, it doesn't really combine.
Speaker:And the way to get a much lighter, flaky, shorter pastry is to greater it.
Speaker:So there you go.
Speaker:There is my secret to my own pastry when I actually make it.
Speaker:So I do make gluten free pastry and.
Speaker:Another little tip as well.
Speaker:I always find that recipes that have an egg in them work really well . So
Speaker:gratering the butter or the margarine and also putting an egg in them really
Speaker:seems to help combine and make it crispy and short and light and lovely.
Speaker:However, it's not just about pastry today, it's also about , what pies we can make.
Speaker:So, earlier this week, The reason I thought this week's podcast is
Speaker:going to be about pies, , is because I went into a shop and I bought a
Speaker:joint of beef and there was another little joint of beef sitting there.
Speaker:So I decided to get that one as well and I thought, I will do something with it.
Speaker:I didn't quite know what was gonna do with it.
Speaker:So we had the beef one evening and we had a lovely Sunday dinner midweek actually.
Speaker:And then I thought, Oh, what should I do with this small joint of beef?
Speaker:I thought, I know I will make a lovely steak pie.
Speaker:So here is the quick check to make an a steak pie.
Speaker:If you've got a , cooker, and I don't use mine very often, I must
Speaker:say, , however, When I want to cook beef, I do use a slow cooker.
Speaker:So here's my, and do this a little bit differently to most people.
Speaker:So
Speaker:onions thick, put on the bottom, herb, just mixed herbs about.
Speaker:One and a half teaspoons of herbs, putting some black pepper as well.
Speaker:, and about three bay leaves.
Speaker:I always try and get a lot of bay leaves in there.
Speaker:And what I did was I put the whole joint in.
Speaker:Now a lot of people, and they're making a pie, will cook them into chunks, but
Speaker:I don't, So anyway, I stood, I, I just put a little bit of salt and pepper on
Speaker:the outside of the joint and stuck it in there, covered it in water, and that was,
Speaker:I left it to boil for a little while and, and the thing is, you've got some pepper
Speaker:in there, there's a little bit of water.
Speaker:, and the beef will just take some of that.
Speaker:, That in there.
Speaker:Now, if you want to put in a stock cube, you can do, it was quite a,
Speaker:it wasn't a really big thick joint.
Speaker:It was quite a flat little joint, if you know what I mean.
Speaker:, so it didn't need much water to cover it, but because the herbs, there's like fine.
Speaker:And I like that to cook for a few hours.
Speaker:, and you really need to have a look at the, the weight, but I just tend
Speaker:to put it on high, get the thing hot.
Speaker:, and then what I will do is I, I will turn it down, but I always cook
Speaker:a joint for about six hours and.
Speaker:Then I just let it cool down and then the following day I took it outta
Speaker:the, the stock, the water, et cetera.
Speaker:As I said, I'd only put, only put like, , onion in there.
Speaker:If you got other things, you know, stick it in there.
Speaker:Can put a few, a couple of carrots, a little bit of, , celery.
Speaker:It's entirely up to you, but this is just what I did.
Speaker:Cause it's what was there.
Speaker:So then I peeled off.
Speaker:, the fat and the fat will render it down and it will
Speaker:puts and flavoring into, that's
Speaker:one two inch chunk.
Speaker:Now it's cold because it's had time to sort of cool down overnight.
Speaker:, so anyway, this made some big chunks of meat.
Speaker:And then what I did was I got all of that stock and put it into a pan
Speaker:and I actually let it boil up and.
Speaker:This is the trick, okay?
Speaker:In gluten free world, there's so many little tricks and
Speaker:things that make our life easy.
Speaker:, so what I use to make gravy, and that's what we're doing now.
Speaker:We're making a gravy aren't to go this beautiful steak in pie.
Speaker:, and I use gravy salt.
Speaker:It's under a pound for a little box and it will last you forever.
Speaker:The supermarket that I find it in is in Morrison's, Just look gravy salt.
Speaker:It's been around for about, well, probably not a hundred
Speaker:years, but a long, long time.
Speaker:, and it's just incredible.
Speaker:Gravy, salt is really, really good stuff.
Speaker:And, and it's so underrated.
Speaker:People use stock cubes when buy stock cubes or when you like,
Speaker:you can't use all of them.
Speaker:Can you?
Speaker:Um, you don't actually know what's in them, just really, really good.
Speaker:So
Speaker:how it's going.
Speaker:, but there's salt cornflower caramel in there.
Speaker:That's it.
Speaker:Uh, I have checked a couple of times.
Speaker:It's gluten free.
Speaker:, so that's what I use.
Speaker:I keep checking, you know, every year or so just to make sure that
Speaker:it's still group gluten free.
Speaker:And what I do is I start to sprinkle some of that.
Speaker:Into that stock.
Speaker:And what it will do is you've got the, the juice from the meat in there.
Speaker:You've also got the, the flavorings of the herbs, the salt, the
Speaker:pepper, and the bay leaves.
Speaker:And what you then gonna do is add this gravy salt into it and it will start
Speaker:to brown it and keep tasting so you crumbled a little bit off into the,
Speaker:into the stock that you're making.
Speaker:And we're gonna turn that into a gravy.
Speaker:So when that starts to get to the taste that you actually want, be careful
Speaker:because it is gravy salt, so you don't want to keep adding and cause then
Speaker:you'll just have too much salt in there.
Speaker:And when you get to the taste that you actually like, what you gonna
Speaker:do then is you gonna get the corn flour out and you gonna add a
Speaker:couple of teaspoons of cornflower.
Speaker:Now, I dunno how much stock you've got there.
Speaker:Um, Just use it so it creates a really thick gravy.
Speaker:And then the final thing that I do, final thing that I do, so I've got the
Speaker:consistency that I want think just to make it look little bit more like normal gravy.
Speaker:I get some milk out the fridge.
Speaker:If you don't wanna use cow milk, you can use another milk and put a
Speaker:couple of splashes of milk in there.
Speaker:They sound like what you put in tea and it just changes it from.
Speaker:Dark, clear, watery, gloop that always served up something really nice.
Speaker:So touch and suddenly will look really nice color.
Speaker:So what you want then is let that gravy cool.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:So then we're gonna get the, , I dunno if you're from up north or not, but up north.
Speaker:We have this saying of a plated dye and you use something like an a tin,
Speaker:enamel plate, or it may be a plate that goes in the oven, but you will
Speaker:put pastry on the bottom of the plate and you put that in in just to
Speaker:start to cook the base of the pastry.
Speaker:So you might want to put baking beans on on the top.
Speaker:If you want to use a pie tin, you can do, but I really like plated pies.
Speaker:, so anyway, it's up to you which one you use.
Speaker:It's entirely up to you.
Speaker:So then, , I took it out of the oven, let it cool down, and then I
Speaker:put all these big chunks of beef on.
Speaker:On this plated pipe.
Speaker:Then I put the cool gravy on top of that, and then I put another
Speaker:layer of beautiful pastry on top.
Speaker:Now with your pastry, when it's on top, make sure you crimp around the edges.
Speaker:Don't have to you just so it's sealed, but do put a knife through
Speaker:the top so the steam can escape.
Speaker:If not, you'll just end up with huge.
Speaker:Right?
Speaker:Um, Balloon within , the pastry where the air is trying to get out.
Speaker:So do make sure that you just put a hole in the top of the pie and then
Speaker:cook that for about half an hour and you just want it to be on a, a medium heat.
Speaker:160 180 depends on your oven.
Speaker:Every oven's different.
Speaker:, so just be relaxed about this.
Speaker:But honestly, I suddenly realized how often do we go past.
Speaker:Something that's reduced or something that's more of a scrag end.
Speaker:You know, we only have to look at scrag end of um, , lamb and all of these cuts.
Speaker:Every so often you get a real good deal on them.
Speaker:And I made the most delicious beef pie that we had for two meals.
Speaker:And it was delicious, absolutely delicious.
Speaker:It was big chunks, and when I compared it to a pie that I bought online, it was
Speaker:a medium pie, which is quite small pie.
Speaker:Actually.
Speaker:It was only about centimeter deep.
Speaker:It was fine, it tasted nice, but honestly, the beef inside
Speaker:it was tiny, tiny, tiny chunks.
Speaker:And honestly, That pie was out of this world.
Speaker:I think the, the beef probably cost me about five pounds.
Speaker:Then I've got the pastry that cost me about three pounds.
Speaker:Then I've got a couple of onions, which were just in the bottom of the, , fridge.
Speaker:I've got a little bit of bro salt, I've got a little bit of water, I've
Speaker:got some bay leaves, got some herbs.
Speaker:So to put that together to make an incredible big pie that does give for
Speaker:two big meals, , I don't think was.
Speaker:And you know what, when it comes up to Christmas, you will, as you walk
Speaker:around, you will find that there will be offers, things going close
Speaker:to the sell by date, things that you get a little bit of a bargain on.
Speaker:And , this is one of those things.
Speaker:I just saw this lonely, tiny little, joint, And I thought, that's not
Speaker:actually big enough to do proper joint, you know, for a dinner.
Speaker:I thought that would be a little bit small, so let me
Speaker:try and convert it into a pie.
Speaker:And honestly it was, it was enough.
Speaker:I had thought, do I need to put some potatoes in there to absolutely delicious.
Speaker:So we had the first, what I will say, steak pie of autumn.
Speaker:No say of them.
Speaker:We're not quite Easter, aren't we?
Speaker:Um, but of Autumn.
Speaker:And when it comes to autumn and pies, there's nothing quite like it.
Speaker:So anyway, we had our first pie, but that wasn't it because then
Speaker:I went on,, and I popped into a, a shop I've never been in before.
Speaker:Now this store is, , in one of the neighboring towns to where I live, and
Speaker:there are a lot of shops there where people come from around the world.
Speaker:And this was a Hungarian I will.
Speaker:It said Hungarian shop.
Speaker:It was more like a Hungarian deli.
Speaker:I went in and there was all this beautiful fresh bread.
Speaker:Of course, I can't touch any of it.
Speaker:, there was like alcohol.
Speaker:There were fresh vegetables.
Speaker:There were the most beautiful, big, big, big, big apples.
Speaker:, there was the little bit frozen section at the back.
Speaker:And as I looked and in that frozen section, suddenly my eyes just
Speaker:popped out on stocks because.
Speaker:Sitting in the most beautiful little squares, honestly.
Speaker:Nice, beautiful little squares.
Speaker:Were these, meggi, cherries?
Speaker:It's a little box of cherries.
Speaker:It just says that from the eu, but this was amazing.
Speaker:, so.
Speaker:What I would say is go in, have a look at the what you can get.
Speaker:And the reason why I absolutely love these were they're sour cherries.
Speaker:And as I got the, , the counter the to pay, she says they, they're sour cherries.
Speaker:Yes, I know.
Speaker:I love them.
Speaker:And we don't have many sour cherries in the uk.
Speaker:It's more of the a European delicacy.
Speaker:So the fact I got these, they're frozen.
Speaker:There are some pips in them as well.
Speaker:Some, some of the, in the middle.
Speaker:, so do be careful.
Speaker:, but what I did was I just used one pack.
Speaker:I actually got two packs, but I used one pack exactly same.
Speaker:I like put the pastry in the pie tin.
Speaker:, and then with the cherries, what I did was I popped them in a pan to heat them up.
Speaker:If you want to make sure there isn't, there isn't a stone in there.
Speaker:What you need to do is just put a knife through every single, , cherry to see
Speaker:if the pips are, if the stones are gone.
Speaker:For me, because it was all adults eating it, I wasn't really bothered
Speaker:to just warn people before.
Speaker:If there's any stones, be careful with your teeth, um, and you
Speaker:can decide which camp you're on.
Speaker:Do you do, do you take every single pip out of the Cherries?
Speaker:Or not.
Speaker:, I think it's quite nice and quite nice little discovery.
Speaker:So anyway, put them in a, a little pan.
Speaker:heated them up gen gently.
Speaker:And then I put three teaspoons of corn flour in to, You'll have to
Speaker:gauge how much liquid is in this now.
Speaker:For me, it took about three teaspoons and I then of corn flour just
Speaker:to get a beautiful, rich, thick syrup, cuz I didn't want water.
Speaker:I wanted to create the juice.
Speaker:And then, I put in only, and this is because I love this sour.
Speaker:Of the cherries, and I don't want to make them overly sweet.
Speaker:So I put about one and a half teaspoons of, of a golden sugar in
Speaker:there and just like that mix together.
Speaker:So suddenly it went from having a syrup, like water on there, just a
Speaker:juice to having a thick syrup, , sauce.
Speaker:And also there was a little bit of sweetness in the, in the source.
Speaker:So this was one pack, 300 grams of frozen, , sour cherries.
Speaker:Now I know that you can get cherries all over the place, but I was just so excited
Speaker:that these were sour cherries., and the same, the, the steak pie, We're just
Speaker:gonna make pie and we're going to put actually another little secret for you.
Speaker:I did actually change this.
Speaker:I didn't do it exactly the same.
Speaker:So what I actually did, Put the, the pastry on the bottom of the plate.
Speaker:I then put it in the oven to heat.
Speaker:I put my, my, , baking beans on there, just stop it.
Speaker:, uh, all puffing up.
Speaker:But then when I took it out and I was ready to put this juice in, I, I
Speaker:let the pastry go cold, first of all.
Speaker:, and the reason for that is you don't want hot and cold.
Speaker:And if you put hot and top of hot, I find when it goes into the
Speaker:oven, I'm not a great fan of it.
Speaker:So I tend.
Speaker:Bake all of my pies that I let the pie crust go cold.
Speaker:I let the filling go cold, and then everything going into that
Speaker:oven, the, the base, the middle, and the topping are all cool.
Speaker:So everything's got to start to get to the right temperature to cook, and if the
Speaker:base and the middle are hot, And you then put a cold topping on, You're trying to
Speaker:heat the, you're trying to bake the top of the pie, and it's really easy for the
Speaker:top of the pie not to be quite cooked.
Speaker:So that's why I do it that way.
Speaker:So we've got the, I've allowed like the, the pastry base to cool.
Speaker:I then added a sprinkling no more than a teaspoon of ground rice.
Speaker:And the reason why I use ground rice is if it gets too moist in there, it
Speaker:will start to soak up the moisture.
Speaker:So I just put some cherries, all the cherries on the middle, and
Speaker:then put the topping on there, and I then put it into 1 60, 180.
Speaker:, Into the oven.
Speaker:Remember to cut a hole in the top, so just to prick it with a knife so that all
Speaker:of that heat can can get outta the pie.
Speaker:It was absolutely delicious.
Speaker:Now you can put an egg wash on top.
Speaker:You can sprinkle some caster sugar on top.
Speaker:All of them are lovely, but I just wanted pure pastry.
Speaker:And pure sour cherries, and it was lovely.
Speaker:The pastry was not sweet.
Speaker:The sour cherries weren't sweet, but what I did do was put lashings and
Speaker:I mean lashings of custard on top.
Speaker:It was absolutely incredible.
Speaker:So when we all had a piece of this pie, and we had the pie last night, I found.
Speaker:One, , stone.
Speaker:My mom found two stones and my hubby found three stones, so that's quite amusing.
Speaker:But this what, this what I've, in the last few days as.
Speaker:We have to stop being snobby about pastry and , having to make everything else else.
Speaker:Cause we don't have to make everything ourselves do we?
Speaker:, so that's why I have that in my freezer, , all the time just in case
Speaker:I need to make, pastry because if I have an idea, I want to do it there,
Speaker:and then if I have to make it, then put it in the fridge for an hour to chill
Speaker:before I, I just find it so much easier.
Speaker:It's actually a lot easier to roll out.
Speaker:One thing that I will say is you still do have to use two
Speaker:layers of grease proof to roll.
Speaker:Anything else when it comes to pastry, gluten-free world.
Speaker:It's gonna be so sticky.
Speaker:It's not like normal pastry.
Speaker:. , but you put your one layer of, um, grease paper, then you put your
Speaker:pastry on it, then you put another layer, and then you start to roll out.
Speaker:It will crack, it will flop.
Speaker:It doesn't matter.
Speaker:It's more pliable.
Speaker:It's not like gluten pastry where you've got to be really
Speaker:careful how you handle it.
Speaker:This stuff you can re-roll and re-roll and re-roll.
Speaker:It'll be fine, . So anyway, that's, , what we did last week.
Speaker:So, I was just so excited when I found these sour cherries and,
Speaker:and I do think in, in the uk, which is where I'm based, we don't
Speaker:actually celebrate cherries enough.
Speaker:We just don't.
Speaker:, you know, if you go out somewhere, there'll be apple pie, apple
Speaker:crumble for the gluten people.
Speaker:If you are looking enough to have a gluten-free restaurant, you may have
Speaker:the, the gluten-free stuff there.
Speaker:There tends to be apple.
Speaker:Very, very rarely do we see cherries out there.
Speaker:So it was just so exciting for me to make a cherry pie.
Speaker:, and you know, it doesn't stop there.
Speaker:Think about when you ate gluten and you could make a pie, a
Speaker:beautiful almond , frangipane.
Speaker:, You can do that again.
Speaker:Stick some sour cherries in there.
Speaker:It will be out of this world.
Speaker:It really will be because if you, as long as you're using, a ready
Speaker:rolled a packet pastry and the two I mentioned before are Sue's frozen
Speaker:pastry, Morrison's packet pastry.
Speaker:These are the ones that I use that resemble.
Speaker:Resemble proper pastry, you know that all the people are happy to eat as well.
Speaker:, so these are the ones that I actually like and, uh, they're really, really, really
Speaker:quite exciting because then as you get an idea, if you think, Oh, treacle tart.
Speaker:Um, I've got some, we can use our own bread crumbs, our gluten free
Speaker:bed bread crumbs up if that's what you want to do and have a go.
Speaker:, if you want to make a bakewell tart, you can do, because all of the things that.
Speaker:We used to make, we can still make, we just have to know what to use.
Speaker:So pastry was always, I always found that pastry was just as hard as nails.
Speaker:It wasn't flaky, it wasn't rich, it didn't taste nice, It didn't taste buttery.
Speaker:But you can put a beautiful egg, egg wash on top of.
Speaker:You can sprinkle some.
Speaker:, if you're making an apple pie, sprinkle a little bit of cinnamon
Speaker:and sugar on top of the egg wash.
Speaker:It just transforms it and you can still do all of these things.
Speaker:, there's a lot, and I mean, a lot of bad pastry out there, and I think I've tried
Speaker:most of them and, and there's some.
Speaker:I've just thrown, straight the bin.
Speaker:It might taste okay, but it looks awful.
Speaker:Or some look okay.
Speaker:It tastes awful.
Speaker:It's just these are the ones that have settled on that.
Speaker:I'm happy for now.
Speaker:, but you know what if, if, if you really fancy your cherry pie and you don
Speaker:anything, But I can't get to one of those shops or they're not around me.
Speaker:Do you know what's something that I will definitely say?
Speaker:There are some of the more economical supermarkets that have
Speaker:very, very great relations with, um, some of the European countries.
Speaker:And when you go into them, you can always find a jar of beautiful cherries
Speaker:in a syrup, use them, go to the frozen sections, you'll find cherries frozen.
Speaker:Why not use them?
Speaker:, they're absolutely amazing.
Speaker:And something a another little thing.
Speaker:, go to your, , tinned fruit aisle.
Speaker:You might find something called, , a black cherry filling.
Speaker:They're not bad.
Speaker:And the other thing as well, you can top put them top, , a cheesecake with them.
Speaker:So for so long we've had to.
Speaker:Bland stuff and that doesn't need to be anymore.
Speaker:So I really do like the, , is there fillings and toppings on it?
Speaker:And it's really interesting, the number of I've and will have a
Speaker:gluten free cheesecake and will offer me a plain cheesecake, one
Speaker:with Mandarin or one with , cherries.
Speaker:And I know that the mandarins are out of a tin.
Speaker:On top of the cheesecake.
Speaker:That's fine.
Speaker:And I know that the cherry one is, it's the pie filling that they put on top.
Speaker:I call that.
Speaker:Brilliant.
Speaker:It's in genius.
Speaker:You're giving me choices.
Speaker:Thank you so much restaurants for having a chef there that actually
Speaker:thinks about how can we vary this?
Speaker:How can we make it so the person who comes in here every week, And orders the
Speaker:cheesecake, the gluten free cheesecake can have a bit of variety, so thank you.
Speaker:I take my hats off to you, and you can do this at home, so you can get
Speaker:gluten free cheesecakes out there and you can make them as well.
Speaker:And I will be sharing some recipes that I use, some cheesecakes, oh
Speaker:my word are incredible, but that, do they take a long time to cook?
Speaker:Those are the ones that I call the cheat style, which are actually really good.
Speaker:. Get some, um, cherry pie filling.
Speaker:Um, pop that on top, get some tin mandarins because they taste lovely.
Speaker:It's not always about taking a beautiful mandarin, peeling it and
Speaker:putting it on top of a cheesecake.
Speaker:Sometimes we do actually want it out of tin.
Speaker:, so these are some things that I do and, and if you can't be bothered
Speaker:to cook, you can't be bothered to do the whole pastry thing
Speaker:I'll tell you the best pie that's on the market, and this is the
Speaker:best pie that's out there by far.
Speaker:, and this is something, it's Kirsty's luxury apple pie.
Speaker:There's two of them in a box.
Speaker:They're not cheap.
Speaker:, they're over three pound for two pieces.
Speaker:But oh my God, they're worth every penny and more.
Speaker:Absolutely every penny and more.
Speaker:It's not like a normal pie because the pastry is just on the bottom.
Speaker:It's deep filled, it's chunky, it's delicious.
Speaker:, I know there's a lot in the range.
Speaker:That's the one thing that I buy absolutely incredible.
Speaker:So, Just because we are gluten free, it does not mean that
Speaker:we can't have fantastic pie.
Speaker:We are in autumn, we're now in September.
Speaker:, I know that we're gonna have apples next month.
Speaker:We're going to have beautiful things coming through winter.
Speaker:How about those mince pies?
Speaker:, mince pies.
Speaker:mince meat pies.
Speaker:We've got to be careful again because.
Speaker:The suet that is often used in mince meat is rolled in wheat flour, and
Speaker:that's why we can't have mince pies.
Speaker:, and whilst supermarkets and shops are a lot better than they used
Speaker:to be, I, I always tend to think either the mince meat is really dry.
Speaker:Oh my , the pastry rate is so hard and tasteless.
Speaker:It's disgusting.
Speaker:Um, so I have to drown them , which I don't always wanna do.
Speaker:So, When it comes to mince pies and things like that, you can make them yourself.
Speaker:You can buy the gluten free mince meat that you enjoy, and just
Speaker:to spice it up a little bit.
Speaker:Put in a little bit of port, a little bit of rum, a little bit of whiskey, whatever
Speaker:it is, , grater, a little bit more nutmeg, put in, a little bit more cinnamon.
Speaker:What you want do is when you open it, I tend to find that they're quite bland,
Speaker:so we just need to add spice and.
Speaker:A little bit of alcohol and then you will have the most
Speaker:incredible mincemeat you've taste.
Speaker:So most supermarket, certainly in our local health food shops, they will
Speaker:always have them in the gluten free one.
Speaker:If you've got anything from last year, And I know that there is a, you
Speaker:know, a sell by date and oh my words.
Speaker:People are gonna say, You're so wrong for saying this.
Speaker:, but you know what?
Speaker:A lot of these things will be fine the following year.
Speaker:They will, Honestly, I've done it.
Speaker:We've been fine with it.
Speaker:I just put a big glug of alcohol in there and use them again.
Speaker:Uh, can I just say it's an open, an unopened tin from last year,
Speaker:not one that you've opened.
Speaker:It's been open in the fridge, in the cupboard or the fridge for a year.
Speaker:That's not what I mean at all.
Speaker:So what I would say is, Whatever you are out and about, if you see some
Speaker:gluten free, mince meat, grab it, take it, take it home, and use some
Speaker:of the ideas that I've given you.
Speaker:You know, if you like things that are more citrusy, then why don't you open
Speaker:that jar of mince meat and grater.
Speaker:Put some of the zest in of lemon.
Speaker:And orange and just lift it up if you love it with Ginger.
Speaker:Why don't you get some of the, , ginger, uh, the jats of Ginger in jars.
Speaker:And take some of the syrup and cut one of those balls of ginger up into
Speaker:tiny chunks and put some of that in.
Speaker:Like I said, cinnamon.
Speaker:Tiny, tiny, tiny bit of cloves.
Speaker:Be really, really careful with cloves.
Speaker:, nutmeg, just raise those spices in those mince, in that mince
Speaker:meat, and then you can put it in and make your own mince pies.
Speaker:So I talk about how can we make our.
Speaker:Gluten free journey and lifestyle better, and I think that's about looking at
Speaker:what's on the market and making it better.
Speaker:I know that you will make better steak pies.
Speaker:You will make better cherry pies than you can get out there.
Speaker:I really do.
Speaker:Just you.
Speaker:There are things that you can use to make life easier for you.
Speaker:Likewise, If you can't be bothered to, there is one apple pie that
Speaker:I would say is up there, and that is that Kirstys luxury apple pie.
Speaker:We have been eating this now for about three years, , to the point where I
Speaker:always have a few boxes in the freezer.
Speaker:So when people come around, I will make that as, , as a dessert.
Speaker:And everybody just oos and rs over it.
Speaker:So as we come into later into Autum, I will share how I replicate those apple
Speaker:pies and I'm just so happy that we're coming into Apple season when we can
Speaker:start to get our British apples and
Speaker:, I have got some from my neighbors
Speaker:and I can't wait to use them and share some of those recipes with you.
Speaker:So gluten free, Angela, it's almost a wrap.
Speaker:So this week it was all about how can we make pies?
Speaker:Honestly, just get into the kitchen and create a pie, create a steak
Speaker:pie, a cherry pie, whatever you want.
Speaker:Just start to experiment and enjoy.
Speaker:Being gluten free because you know what?
Speaker:We can have some incredible stuff and, , I will be back next week sharing more
Speaker:of my hints and tips of how to live a beautiful gluten free lifestyle and not
Speaker:feel as you are missing out too much.
Speaker:This is Angela from Gluten Free, Angela, and I will see you soon.
Speaker:Thank you so much for spending the last few minutes with me.
Speaker:You take care.
