As autumn arrives, many home cooks turn to pies for a comforting dinner, but choosing the wrong meat can leave the filling dry and tough. Niall McCusker, an expert at specialist butcher Campbells Prime Meat, has shared which cuts work best and how to avoid common pastry pitfalls.
Best meat choices for pies
McCusker advises using fatty cuts that suit slow cooking, such as beef shin, chuck, or chicken thighs. While this may not sound appetising, the fat helps keep the filling moist during baking. He warns against overcooking the meat before it goes into the pie, as this can make it dry and tough.
Highly processed meats like ham or salami should be avoided. These are high in saturated fat, salt, and sodium nitrites, and can release excess grease into the pastry, making the bottom soggy while over-salting the filling.
Getting the pastry right
McCusker also highlights the importance of the pastry-to-filling ratio. Too much pastry makes the pie heavy and can leave the middle raw, while too little fails to hold the filling. He recommends a generous filling with a crust around the thickness of a pound coin.
For shop-bought pastry, he advises letting it rest and reach room temperature before baking to prevent shrinking. To achieve a golden flaky crust, he suggests lightly baking the base without fully cooking it, cutting a steam vent in the lid to stop filling from escaping at the edges, and finishing with an egg wash using eggs with a bright orange yolk, seasoned with salt and pepper.
