I had some left over pulled pork and pulled brisket and didn’t want to waste them. I gave some away to my volunteers at the beer fest an made the rest into pies.
Two shoulders with cumin and paprika rub about to go into a low oven for 8 hours.
The pies on sale on our festival bar on Sunday. They were rather good even if I do say so myself.
Its that time of the year when I work 16-17 hours a day, lose half a stone in weight (not such a bad thing) and do my hardest to make a little cash for my family on the side by running the food operation at at my beer fest.
Over the last couple of years I have tried lots of different offerings – but have finally settled on my current menu. I would like to do more, but I dont actually get to do any of the cooking myself as I am too busy, so rely on some kind volunteers.
My current offering is based on variations on some nice jumbo bratwursts, I have “branded” them with nice names and logos and the “double piggy” with pulled pork is my best seller.
I make a large pot of chilli, and about 6 shoulders of pulled pork too. The picture above is a “Buddha” (Make me one with everything and a pulled pork bap.
Keeping things hot in my new electric bain marie. The beer fried onions are always popular.
I also splashed out on big chunk of brisket going cheap and roasted it overnight with some basic salt & pepper – it was amazeballs!
In the past I have made a few attempt at veggie curries etc but this year I found a recipe for veg pilau made in the slow cooker – I cooked a simple veggie curry with yoghurt, then added it to the rice in the cooker and let it do its business. I then portioned it up and pinged it in the microwave when anyone wanted a veggie option.
A splash of bombay duck pickle and they were really good!
Only another 8 months till the next festival – I feel better knowing that I finally have a menu that works, can be cooked by anyone, and a lot of the preparation can be done in advance.
I had a tin of dubious looking Korean pickled cabbage which I had originally intended for a pork pie, but having run out of veggie pies I needed a quick batch for bank holiday monday (I HATE BANK HOLIDAYS!).
I combo microwaved a large sweet potato and scooped out the flesh into a bowl with the roughly chopped kimchi, and some red kidney beans. I knocked up a batch of hot water crust pastry which is cooling as I type.
Will update the post with some finished pics in a bit
To make these I raided my freezer door sine frozen butternut squash, and mixed veg. I added these to a chopped courgette and stirred in a sachet of Ashoka Pav Bhaji.
To the right is my home made hot water crust pastry.
Yummy!
A new ingredient for my pies – preserved lemons thinly sliced and mixed with dried rose petals, and ground black pepper. Seemed to be a North African theme.
I shall report back on taste later on when I have sold a few!
After an online shopping spree I have some weird and wonderful ingredients to cook with. Today’s effort was a bag of dried Japanese seaweed – Wakame. I mixed with sausagemeat, and a sprinkle of light soy sauce.
Straight in the freezer so no finished pic….
My inner 12 year old bought some more cock flavour seasoning – a Jamaican ingredient. So I added some Banana ketchup and my sausagemeat. These have gone straight in the freezer so no finished pic.
This is a different brand banana ketchup (used Baron’s before) and at least this one is pourable!
Just catching up with myself after a holiday, and a backlog of cooking.
I have made some lovely pies – but barely had a chance to take a picture:
Pork with Chorizo & Especias Morunas (saffron, mild smoked paprika, cumin & Chilli)
Pork with Kashmiri spiced Mango Chutney
Veggie Pies with Black Beans & Banana Ketchup, grated apple & Polenta
Pikeas – Pork pies with a Swedish meatball in the middle
Spinach & Chickpea pies with 5-spice
All-in Veggie pies with Broad beans, kidney beans, sweet corn, courgette, ratatouille, polenta, green lentils with pickled chillies, papaya and carrot.
Pork & Goldfish pies (well Goldfish brand Chinese Curry Paste)
This was another extravagance from online shopping, a posh Japanese chili pepper mix with seaweed, sesame and ginger. It does taste nice 🙂
I added it to some mashed potato, red kidney beans, garlic & ginger paste and some polenta to thicken it all up.
A little artistic sprinkle to finish them off – and voila they are to the front of the picture below.
A friend had bought me some “Especias Morunas” back from Spain – which translates as Moorish Spices. It is mostly mild paprika, cumin and saffron.
I added it to a tin of drained spinach, black eyed peas, and sweet potato before making some hot water crust pastry – fun and easy!
They turned out by far my best looking pies yet – and they all sold out in a day to exclamations of delight (or something like that!)
Coalheavers Food 