Hello, and I hope you have all had an amazing Christmas this year and I would like to wish you all the best for 2026!
Not so much a hard and fast recipe this month but more some ideas for using up those Christmas leftovers.
Pies and puddings are such an important part of our menus in the pubs but this is also something I do at home to use up bits in the fridge.
One of the key things is to make sure you have enough sauce to cover your meat and vegetables in the pie and to make sure you have a good seal on the lid, that way not only does the filling heat from convection but from steaming too.
We are keeping things really simple with no bottom on the pie ( I know!) but a suet pastry is going to give us plenty of texture and a decently thick crust.
In the video we used turkey and left over gammon but you really can mix this up according to what you have available. If you are going vegetarian root vegetables with a little cheese are a great option and you can use a vegetarian suet.
Before you top your pie dish with the suet pastry just brush a little beaten egg around the rim to help the suet pastry stick.
Double cream will work well as an alternative to the clotted if all the clotted cream has been used on the mince pies!
Cooking times will vary according to your dish and the size of the pie but for these we cooked at 185℃ for around 20 minutes so that the pastry was golden and crusty and the filling was piping hot.
SUET PASTRY
250g self-raising flour (or plain flour with 0.5 tsp baking powder)
125g Atora shredded suet (beef or vegetable)
1 level tsp salt
Approx. 150ml cold water (sufficient to form a dough)
1 beaten egg or a little milk for glazing
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