A corned beef pie

 Years ago I worked with a guy whose favourite sandwich was corned beef and pickled beetroot.  A dangerous choice when he wore a white shirt and fancy tie to work every day, but never once did I see him spill a drop of the purple juice.

And although I have no love of cold corned beef, the combination has stuck in my head and I have tried to recreate the flavours in a pie, where, to my mind, heat does such great favours to corned beef.

These quantities are for a 12" pie dish, which is a lot of pie - scale down if you are not feeding a crowd!

Shortcrust pastry made with 450g flour and 225g butter.
Chill in the fridge while you make the filling.

Heat the oven to 200ºC

Grease a 12" pie dish 

1 onion, finely chopped
400g cooked potato, cubed

150g cooked beetroot, cubed (add more if you like and reduce the volume of potato)

2 pickled gherkins, finely chopped

600g corned beef, cubed

Mix all of the filling ingredients together in a large mixing bowl.

Roll out half of the pastry to fit the base of the pie dish, then pile the filling on top.

Roll out the rest of the pastry and use to cover the filling, crimping the edges to seal.

Brush generously with beaten egg yolk for a glossy, golden finish.

Pop it in the hot oven and bake for 40 minutes.

Netherton Foundry Shropshire 2020 ©

www.netherton-foundry.co.uk

A pear cake for Autumn

 Pears, a most perplexing and petulant fruit; one day they are hard enough to knock someone out at 100 paces, the next they are the fruit equivalent of a tumbling toddler - soft, squidgy, bruised and in need of immediate attention.

And so it was that the 2 pears that had been ripening gradually in our fruit bowl, suddenly accelerated towards fruit fly Heaven and were caught at the very last moment.

Too soft for poaching in red wine or lemon and cinnamon scented sryrup, too little space in the freezer for a granita, so they headed into a cake.  And, quite frankly, I think this is the best cake of 2020, so far.

120g butter

120g soft brown sugar

90g marmalade - I uised home made, but if you don't have homemade, try to use one that is not overly sweet.

2 eggs

120g self raising flour

4 tsp of ground ginger (more or less to taste)

2 large ripe pears, cored and chopped (no need to peel, although you can if you wish.  Mine were beyond the point at which peeling was an option)

Heat the oven to 170ºC and grease a 1lb loaf tin

Beat together the butter, sugar and marmalade until very light, then add the eggs and beat again, as hard as you like.

Fold in the flour and ginger and finally, the chopped pears.

Spoon the mix into the loaf tin and bake for around 40 minutes, until a skewer poked into the centre of the cake comes out clean.

If the top of the cake is browning too quickly, cover with a piece of foil, baking parchment or a discarded butter wrapper.

Leave aside until the tin is cool enough to handle without an oven glove and then turn the cake out onto a cooling rack.

When cool, dust with icing sugar and tuck in.

Whilst nice on its own, I reckon this would also make a good dessert with ice cream, whipped cream or yogurt.

Netherton Foundry Shropshire 2020 ©

www.netherton-foundry.co.uk