How To Choose The Perfect Pies For You

There are few finer pleasures in life than that of eating a truly great pie. Pies have been an integral part of British cuisine longer than any other food, feeding and sustaining those across all social classes for centuries. The pie truly is the food of the people. And pretty much everyone loves a great pie. Pies have meaning in our lives. They are soul food that connects us together and a well-made pie is a thing to be admired, before being eagerly devoured.

The pie is still a hugely popular choice in Britain, with over 75% of UK households tucking into a pie meal on a regular basis. Long may this continue!

Pies come in a bewildering array of different flavours, styles, sizes and price points. They are widely available in supermarkets, but increasingly there are many speciality online pie makers (like us) who will deliver direct to your door.

So how do you find the perfect pies for you?

Well, you could try them all and see which you like best. But although surely an enjoyable endeavour, it would likely take a long time and perhaps not be so good for the waistline!

Here are 3 elements that go into making a great pie that should help you to consider which pies are right for you.

1. The Pastry. Well-made pastry is a thing to behold. It is light, flavourful, delicate and delicious. It should not be chewy or hard to eat but should yield under the slightest pressure from your teeth. It should taste rich, but not so rich that it overpowers the filling. The key to this is both in the method of preparation used by the pie-maker, but also in the ingredients used. Pastry is a suspension of flour, fat and water. The fat has to be added carefully to the flour and mixed to just the right consistency before the water is added. At this point timing is everything. Too little mixing and the pastry won’t form properly, too much and the gluten will overdevelop and create a chewy and unpleasant texture to the pastry. The fat should contain at least some butter, which is unrivalled in its flavour. However, too much butter can make a tougher pastry, so a combination of butter and another fat are the best choice. Many mass manufactured pies use only cheap fats and are made in such large quantities that they lack the care and delicacy required to make a truly great pastry.
2. The ingredients. Many pies are made using cheap ingredients that provide an underwhelming eating experience. Good ingredients cost money, but they reward you by offering your taste buds a much better eating experience. Meat should be of the highest quality, ideally free range and farmed to the highest standards. It should also be sourced from the UK as British meat is not only better quality, but it is also raised to much higher welfare and safety standards than a lot of other countries. Sadly, many pies are made using imported cheap meat that is both lower quality, lower welfare and more likely to contain undesirable elements such as antibiotics. Look for a meat content of at least 30% and ideally higher. Many cheaper pies contain much less than this, which can end up being a false economy.
3. The cooking. It’s not enough just to have great ingredients, they have to be then cooked with care and attention. Vegetables should be sweated down with fresh herbs and other flavourings to bring out their flavour. The meat should be allowed several hours to cook down properly to be tender and flavourful. The flavours should be developed so that they are robust and well-seasoned, allowing them to compete effectively with the pastry, which can overpower a weak filling.

There are many other elements that go into making a great pie, but hopefully this gives you a steer as to what to look for when buying pies, either at the supermarket or online from a more speciality producer like ourselves.

At Yorkshire Handmade Pies, we are big believers that buying a great quality product is a much better choice both for your health, your enjoyment and also the overall value you get from your food. Cheap food is less satisfying, less healthy and can end up being a false economy.

Our team of pie-makers use recipes developed over many years that aim to use the best ingredients possible but also to get the absolute best out of them. Our meat is 100% UK sourced, with much of it being sourced from individual local farms, such as our herb-fed chicken that is free range and farmed just a few miles from us. It costs more but represents much greater value as the birds are slowly matured and are far more developed in flavour and texture than cheaper more intensively reared chickens. We put a lot of time into our supplier relationships to ensure they are always giving us top quality ingredients, which of course in turn make top quality pies. Our fillings are slow cooked for several hours before being rested overnight, which develops the flavour even more. We have a rigorous internal tasting process to ensure no pie leaves our bakery that doesn’t meet the high standards our customers expect from us.

So whatever pies you choose to eat, hopefully this brief insight into what goes into making a great pie has helped you to choose the best pies for you.