- Serves 4 - Ready in 1 hour 15 minutes (add on an extra 45 minutes if you make your own pastry) -
*If you are looking to cut down your meat intake, then see the Leek and Chicken pie recipe instead (obviously swapping turkey instead of chicken and cranberry sauce instead of mustard and remembering the chestnuts - if using) the quantities of the adjusted recipe makes a veg filled pie with a hint of meat*
Gather together for the Turkey Pie…
1 tbsp butter (to grease the pie tin with).
1 onion, thinly sliced - to save time day-to-day, I keep a big box of onions I've chopped ahead-of-time, in the freezer, so I use 2 handfuls of those.
100g raw mushrooms (circa 6 medium ones, cut into approx. 8 pieces each).
120ml (8 tbsp) - but make 250 ml gravy (I like Bisto Original Gravy Powder as in a cardboard box) and use 8 tbsp of it in the pie and serve the rest with the pie. If using freshly-made gravy from gravy granules it can be added whilst hot to the cold pie filling, as long as you are baking the pie straight away.
4 tbsp plain flour, for dusting the work top and rolling pin.
300g ready-made shortcrust pastry (in a block, NOT ready-rolled as it is the wrong shape for the tin) OR see below to make 300g rough puff pastry (made from; 90g chilled butter in cubes, 180g plain flour, pinch of salt, and 7 -8 tbsp very cold water) - my homemade rough-puff pastry always comes out like very nice shortcrust rather than like puff pastry, so I use it in recipes requiring shortcrust.
Pinch of ground, black pepper.
350g cooked-then-frozen-then-defrosted-in-microwave turkey breast (white) meat, torn up into BITE-SIZE chunks.
Handful of ready-to-eat chestnuts, quartered (optional).
2 tbsp leftover cranberry sauce (optional).
1 tbsp milk (to brush the pie top).
Serve the Turkey Pie with…
Thinly sliced carrot rounds (microwaved on HIGH in 1 tbsp water for 5 -8 minutes).
Peas, covered with 200ml boiling water from the kettle and microwaved on HIGH until hot (circa 5 minutes if cooking from frozen).
Gravy - leftover from what you made for inclusion in the pie, made from gravy granules - I like Bisto Original Gravy Powder as is in a cardboard box - and follow the packet instructions.
Get making the Rough Puff Pastry (or just use shop-bought SHORTCRUST pastry)…
1. In a medium mixing bowl, coat the 90g of chopped, cold butter cubes in the 180g of plain flour and the pinch of salt.
2. Add the 7 -8 tbsp (tablespoons) of very cold water and use your hands to squash the flour and butter cubes roughly together into a lumpy clump of a ball. No need to rub in the butter.
3. On a clean and well-floured worksurface, shape the lump into a rectangle and use a rolling pin to roll it out (moving the rolling pin in ONE DIRECTION only) away from you, until you have a rectangle 1 cm thick.
4. Use plenty of flour on the worksurface and rolling pin.
5. Fold the pastry rectangle from the short end furthest from you – fold 1/3 of the dough towards you, then the nearest 1/3 away from you (so it folds over the first 1/3 you folded) – like folding a business letter. So you now have a rectangle made of 3 equal sized layers.
6. Give the pastry rectangle a ¼ turn clockwise, then repeat the ONE DIRECTION rolling and the 1/3 over 1/3 folding.
7. Give another ¼ turn clockwise.
8. Do the rolling, folding into thirds, and turning process 4 or 5 more times, on a well-floured board.
9. Wrap the pastry in a beeswax wrap (or a plastic bag which you can wash and re-use) and chill in the fridge for at least 30 min before rolling out.
Get cooking the Turkey Pie…
1(a). Chop finely the already-cooked onion-from-the-turkey-cavity and set aside.
OR
1(b). Use a raw onion, peel, finely slice, dice and microwave with 1 tbsp water for 3 minutes on HIGH to soften (in a microwave-safe bowl with a vented lid). Then drain away the excess water from the onion and allow the onion to cool with the lid off, until you are ready to use it.
2. Meanwhile, grease a 20cm diameter, shallow, metal cake tin / pie tin with 1 tbsp of butter, including the top lip.
3. Wipe clean, then dry, then flour your worksurface and flour your rolling pin (or use a wiped-clean wine bottle as a makeshift rolling pin).
4. Roll out 2/3 the pastry (i.e. 200g of it) to £1 coin thickness. Keep rolling it out until it is quite a bit bigger than the tin (so it will adequately and easily go up the sides). I suggest you use rolling pin guides (miraculous silicone circles that fit over the end of your rolling pin) to ensure the pastry is an even thickness.
5. Roll the pastry onto the (well floured) rolling pin and manoeuvre the pastry over the tin. Ease the pastry into the greased tin gently, using a lump of spare pastry to push the rolled-out pastry around the edge of the tin's base.
6. Don't neaten the edges too much yet (just cut off any bits of pastry touching the work surface and add them to your unused pastry) as the pastry will shrink and settle as it sits waiting in the tin.
7. Scrape clean the worksurface, re-flour it and roll out the remaining pastry to make the lid, to £1 thickness again, roll it out a bit bigger than you think it needs to be. Set aside.
8. Pre-heat the oven to 200 C (180 C fan) or gas mark 6.
9. The turkey-pie filling is made by combining the microwaved onion pieces, the 100g of chopped mushrooms, the pinch of ground pepper and the 350g of shredded cooked turkey, with 6 tbsp of gravy - DON'T ADD ALL THE GRAVY YET! (i.e. add the 6 tbsp but keep 2 further tbsp in reserve.) If you have them available you can also add a handful of quartered ready-to-eat chestnuts. Stir.
10. Press the filling down firmly into the pastry-lined tin. Spoon 2 tbsp gravy on top and spread the gravy out. You can now add 2 tbsp of cranberry sauce if you want to, spread that out too and then put the pastry lid in position on top of the pie.
11. Wet the top edges of the pastry (which is on the lip of the tin) with a water-soaked pastry brush (or just wet it by dipping your fingers in water and running them around the top lip of the pastry in the tin).
12. Use the (well floured) rolling pin to manoeuvre the lid gently onto the pie.
13. Push the edges of the pie down gently with your fingers, so the pastry edges start to stick together.
14. Trim off the excess pastry using a knife held vertically, guided by the lip of the pie dish / tin.
15. Use the knife to make little cuts all around the edge of the pie lid (see the photo at the top of the page)- they don't have to be deep cuts, they make the two layers of pastry merge together so the filling doesn't escape during cooking.
16. Use the knife to make two 1cm-long slits in the lid of the pie for steam to escape out of.
17. Brush the top of the pie sparingly with 1 tbsp of milk (you don't want to make it soggy) - the milk will help the pie to brown nicely.
18. Optional - decorate the top of the pie with stars and numbers, cut from any leftover pastry. As you've already brushed the pie top with milk, the stars will stick on easily. Be sure to brush the stars themselves (sparingly) to ensure they are baked golden in the oven. I like to use a mixture of randomly placed small and medium pastry stars. I use small stainless steel numbers similar to these Tala ones.
19. Bake the pie on a low-down shelf in the oven for 50 minutes (turn the heat right up for the final 10 minutes to brown the top of the pie, if needed).
20. Leave the pie to cool for 5 minutes on a cooling rack in the tin (so you don't burn your fingers) then ease a dinner-table knife down the sides of the tin, all the way around. Tip the pie tin upside down onto a folded clean tea towel and the pie should (hopefully!) come out. If not, use a slice/flat knife to excavate the first (messy) piece from the tin. Further slices will then come out more neatly.
21. Serve with cooked carrots, peas and gravy.
