Recipe: Dingle Pies

Continuing the theme for Saint Patrick’s Day inspired dishes, I bring you a favorite recipe of this household – Dingle Pies.  Whereas the Potato Cakes from my last post are more of a side for dinner or breakfast, these Dingle pies are definitely a main course for a lunch or dinner.  Typically when we have these for dinner, we just have one (or two if we go back for seconds) with a side of veg or a side salad.

…and a nice side of stout as well.

While Joan and I were actually in Dingle for a few days this past summer on our Ireland trip, we didn’t get this recipe while we were there, nor did we even consume a Dingle pie there.  (We think we remember seeing it on a menu though.)  The recipe again comes from our go-to Irish cookbook, Irish Food and Cooking, but I’ve of course made a few tweaks to the recipe for simplicity sake.  The original recipe calls for a boneless piece of mutton or lamb that you then dice into pieces.  While that is more traditionally Irish, we always have local grass fed ground beef on hand so have always used that.  After making this recipe multiple times now, I think any red meat (or even turkey) would work well.  I also tend to think that while the ground beef is sometimes difficult to mix with the diced vegetables, it’s stickier texture as compared to diced meat helps hold the filling together when constructing the pies. 

The biggest change I’ve made to the recipe is that instead of making your own pastry dough, I just use ready-made pie dough.  It’s so easy to just unroll each sheet and cut out the top and bottom crusts for the pies.  Of course you’ll have to gather up the unused scraps, roll out the dough, and cut out crusts again but that’s pretty easy.  Oh, one other thing to make it easier.  The recipe (mine and the original) calls for 6 inch diameter bottom crust pieces and a 4 inch diameter top crust pieces.  Before you start the recipe, search around your kitchen for bowls, plates, and so forth that have 4 and 6 inch diameters.  That way you have templates for cutting the crust pieces out.  In our kitchen, the top of a small ramekin is the 4 inch template, while a teacup saucer is the 6 inch.

Recipe:

1 medium large potato, diced (i.e. a normally sized Russet, or large Yukon Gold)

1 large onion diced (white or yellow onion)

2 carrots, diced (and peeled if preferred)

2 celery sticks, diced

1 pound ground meat

2 packages ready-made pie dough (the rolled-up variety)

1 egg, beaten

1) Dice up the vegetables and place in a large bowl.  Add the ground meat and combine well.  Set aside.

2) Unroll the pie dough and cut out the top and bottom crust pieces.  The bottom crusts should be roughly 6 inches in diameter, with the top crusts being a diameter of 4 inches.  (Hint: Out of the ready-made crusts, I’ve found I can get 1 larger top crust and 2 smaller bottom crusts.) Gather and re-roll the pastry dough as needed.  You should be able to get enough crust pieces for 9 full pies (that’s 9 bottoms and 9 tops of course). 

3) Lay out the bottom crust pieces onto baking sheets.  Divide the meat and vegetable filling amongst the bottom crusts, piling a handful of the filling into the middle of each round.  Do not overfill.  (You almost definitely will have extra filling.)

4) Lay the smaller top crust pieces on top of the filling.  Dampen the edges of each bottom pastry piece with water and stretch it up around the filling, pinching and crimping them onto the edges of the top pastry round.

5) With a paring knife, make a small slit on the top of each pie to let out steam.

6) Brush the top of each pie with the beaten egg.

7) Bake in a preheated 350F oven for 1 hour.  (Note: If you are doing two sheets of pies, rotate and switch the two baking sheets halfway through baking.)

We last made these a few weeks ago, but this is most likely what we’ll be making for St. Paddy’s Day this Sunday (probably with the aforementioned side salad and some sticky toffee pudding for dessert).  If Joan and I made Dingle pies every week though, neither of us would complain.  First they’re a great main course, easily served with a small side salad or vegetables.  The other great thing with Dingle Pies is that you have ready to go meals.  It’s easy to just grab one for lunch or as an easy weeknight dinner.  Just reheat in the microwave or in the oven. 

Oh, right.  I almost forgot – that extra meat & veg pie filling.  As I said, you are bound to have extra.  It always happens to us no matter what we do.  You may be thinking, “What do I do with extra raw Dingle pie filling?”  Easy, make breakfast hash.  It’s not your normal hash mixture but fry it up in a frying pan, add some herbs and spices, and serve it up with fried eggs and toast.  It works.  Trust me.  Don’t like hash?  I’m sure there is a male nearby who does.  (I don’t mean that in a sexist way.  I just don’t know many men who don’t like a good breakfast hash.)