Recipe: New Zealand Styled Meat Pie
New Zealand-styled meat pie by Kerabeareats
Welcome to the recipe page for how I made this New Zealand-styled meat pie!
I just want to make a note that I’m not a recipe developer, professional cook, or chef… I just really miss my home (Auckland, New Zealand), and sometimes when I’m feeling homesick I make food that reminds me of home. So this time I made a pie; it didn’t last long.
What makes a New Zealand Meat pie taste so good?
This is a hard one to answer; I don’t really know. However, my guess would probably be in the quality of the meat and dairy available in New Zealand. Known for its high-quality export of meat, it’s not uncommon to see a meat product like “New Zealand Lamb” in the supermarket or on a restaurant menu here in Australia. My point is, meat in New Zealand is very good, so good it’s good enough to export to be known for it. The same goes for dairy; dairy products in New Zealand are in my personal experience is richest and creamiest I’ve tasted. So it makes sense that a meat pie with rich, butter pastry, and high-quality meat would make an excellent meat pie.
What flavours to look out for when making a New Zealand-styled meat pie?
The filling and crust have to be creamy and full of flavour. Creamy, as in the gravy needs to be thick and luscious, and the seasoning as to be on point. Since I’m not a cook, and I don’t know the first thing about making that (yet), when I was at the supermarket I made sure to buy certain ingredients to make the closest thing possible.
Some notes for the ingredients I chose:
Flakey sea salt to give me more control over the seasoning.
Campbells Bone Broth or Campbells Beef Stock (salt reduced) for the gravy.
Puff Pastry - but do not buy the light or fat-reduced version; we want it to be as rich and buttery as possible!
Fatty mince, rating 3 out of 5 stars; we do not want to skimp on the fat!
Corn flour to make the gravy thicker.
A mixture of sharp cheese and mild cheese.
But the most IMPORTANT part of the recipe is…
WATTIES TOMATO SAUCE.
Hell yes, this is the sauce that binds it all together. You can have the best New Zealand Meat pie and it tastes great - but once you add some Watties Tomato sauce to it, it just makes sense. But what makes Watties Tomato sauce so different from others? For me, it’s the bright acidity that cuts through the fattiness and butteriness of a pie, or anything savoury. I don’t experience the same when I eat other tomato sauces; in fact, I omit the sauce unless it’s Watties. You can find Watties Tomato sauce in the sauce or International Food aisle in the supermarket.
So I’m not a cook or a recipe developer… so what’s the recipe?
Full disclosure, I have adjusted this recipe from one I found from Food52. Googling New Zealand-styled meat pies I was very skeptical at most of the recipes, but I found this one that from the looks of things was very homelike, and the ingredients were quite general that I could follow it from Australia.
Here is the recipe:
Ingredients
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1 small onion, finely diced
1 clove garlic, minced (or if you’re like me, however much garlic you want!)
500 grams 3-star fatty beef mince
1 bay leaf (medium-sized)
Flakey sea salt to taste
3 tablespoons cornflour
1 1/2 cups Campbells beef stock (or Bone Broth)
1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
2 450-gram packaged pre-rolled butter puff pastry, thawed in the fridge
Grated cheese (mixture of cheddar and parmesan for sharpness)
Egg - to brush on pastry
Directions
Heat oil in a large frying pan over medium heat. Add onion, cook, stirring often until tender and starting to brown on the edges, about 2-3 minutes. Add garlic, cook for 1 minute. Add beef mince to pan and cook, breaking up with a wooden spoon, until no pink remains, about 5-6 minutes.
Pour in beef stock and Worcestershire sauce. Bring to a boil, scraping all the brown bits off the bottom of the pan. Reduce heat to medium-low and let simmer until gravy has reduced and thickened. This may take about an hour.
While the beef filling is reducing, remove puff pastry from the fridge and place it into a vessel of your choice. For my pie, I used a pie dish, but I also used a muffin tray for any leftover mince, pastry, and cheese. Cover the pie dish base and/or muffin trays with puff pastry. Let chill in the fridge for 30 minutes.
While the pastry is chilling, turn on the oven at 180 degrees fan-forced.
Once the pastry has chilled for about 30 minutes, cook the pastry in the oven for about 10 minutes. At this point, the pastry should be partially cooked.
The beef filling is ready once the filling has been reduced to the point where the liquid is at the same level as the beef mince. At this point, add the cornflour and allow the flour to cook through. When the flour has been cooked through and the filling thickened, pour the beef mixture into your dish covered with the pastry. Fill it to almost full, with just enough room to layer grated cheese to cover all of the mince.
Cover the top of the pie with more puff pastry. Whisk an egg and brush the egg on the pastry to give it a glossy, golden finish.
Bake in the oven for 10-15 minutes or until golden brown. Allow to rest for about 10-20 minutes before serving.
For the savouries, you can forgo the top puff pastry layer and simply sprinkle cheese on the mince filling. You can bake these for a few minutes or until the pastry is golden brown.
Some notes to during the cooking process
At some point, you might freak out about all the fat in the filling. Don’t! This is where the flavour is!
I prefer to use cornflour at the END of my cooking, as I don’t like plumping up the filling too quickly; I actually want to taste the food! For the cornflour mixture, I recommend sifting it through and dissolving it in hot water before adding it in.
Salt to taste, but more important salt at every step. I don’t care what your thoughts on sodium are, if you don’t salt during every step you will risk having no flavour in the pie. Just a pinch at every step at the very least.
What I would (if I could) do differently to make this more New Zealand tasting…
As mentioned, I believe the quality in the ingredients in the answer to a great tasting New Zealand meat pie. Developing this recipe I would attempt a make my own puff pastry using as many New Zealand ingredients as possible, such as Mainland Butter. I would also try to use a high-quality beef mine, maybe Wagyu or Angus mince… maybe I would have to mince it myself… or get the butcher to mince it fresh… and I would also make my own beef stock. This sounds like a lot of work, but it sounds like it might be worth experimenting with.
Another great way to make this pie…
New Zealanders also eat what we call a Potato Top Pie, which is a version of a Cottage Pie. Instead of putting puff pastry on top, you can layer (warm to hot) mashed potato instead, and I also recommend sprinkling some cheese on the potato to give it extra flavour.
