If you look at our History Of Pies Timeline you will see that rumour has it that the very first pie, ever, was one cooked up by our Neolithic ancestors.
It’s fair to say that, judging by the main bulk of the subjects on the walls of their caves: large animals, risky hunting trips, and ‘female’ figures, this was probably a meat pie, wolfed down by hungry male teens, and nary a green vegetable in sight.
The original pie was probably more of a crostata (they didn’t have pie dishes then) but the pastry we are using for this updated version is very short and crumbly, which makes it superb, so it needs to be supported in a quiche dish. What it lacks in authenticity, it makes up for in flavour! It’s SO crumbly in fact that it’s quite difficult to roll, but there is nothing to stop you simply pressing it into the dish with your fingers (very neolithic).
You could always buy ready-made shortcrust pastry, in which case you won’t need the last three ingredients. But this olive oil pastry is SO simple and good it really is worth trying it.
And, of course, it’s perfect for those with a dairy allergy. You can make this pie suitable for them by substituting the feta, either with salty black olives, or with plant-based feta (which can be very good).
You can intensify the flavour of the pastry by substituting some lemon-infused oil (maybe with some fennel seeds in it too) for the plain oil. Fabulous. If I’m short of time I sometimes just throw in a couple of teaspoons of fennel seeds into the pastry mix.
Another short cut is to substitute the tomato paste and sun-dried tomatoes with a jar of Belazu paprika and tomato pesto.
Serve with a very unmacho green salad; or with peas.
A Neolithic meat pie for a hungry young man… and everybody else
Serves – 4
Ingredients
- 300g/10 oz good quality beef mince – or you can use leftover mince, from say, a chilli con carne
- 2 onions
- 1 fat clove of garlic, peeled and crushed with a little textured salt, plus ½ tsp more salt for the pastry
- 1 tbsp Herbes de Provence
- 200g/7 oz feta cheese
- 2 tbsps sundried tomato paste (or substitute this and the sun-dried tomatoes below for a jar of Belazu paprika and tomato pesto)
- 6 sun-dried tomatoes
- 2 tbsp capers
- 200g/¾ cup crème fraîche
- 1 egg
- 180g/1½cups plain flour
- 80 ml/⅓ cup olive oil (or the lemon-fennel seed oil mentioned above), plus more for frying
- 3 tbsps water
Instructions
- Peel and finely chop the onions and get them frying gently with a little olive oil.
- Preheat the oven to 180°C.
- Put the flour, with the salt in a medium mixing bowl. Make a well. Pour a little olive oil into the well, cover up with the flour at the sides. Reform the well. Repeat and repeat until all the olive oil is used. Mix together into a dough. Add the water, mix together again, form into a ball and put the pastry in the freezer to cool.
- By now the onions should be transparent. Add the garlic and the mince, making sure to break up the mince – don’t let it form lumps. Add the Herbes de Provence.
- Chop the sundried tomatoes up quite small. Grease an ovenproof quiche dish.
- Take the pastry out and roll it out on a floured board. Line the quiche dish with the pastry.
- Fill the pie with the meat filling, and scatter the sundried tomato and the capers over it. Crumble over the feta.
- Beat the crème fraîche and the egg together and pour it over the pie, taking care to distribute it evenly.
- Bake for 35 minutes, by which time the pastry should be golden and so should the peaks of feta emerging through the filling.