Dia dhuit!

In my first post I will take you to a country that enchanted both my heart and my taste buds: Ireland!

What can I say about Ireland that you do not already know? Well, Ireland is a great country for road trips. It has a lot of charming places to visit, Celtic historical sites, pubs, many more pubs and, of course, it has U2. Apart from all that, it is a country where you will find savoury food. Wherever you go, you will eat well; but if your idea is to lose weight on this trip, you will be disappointed. To our diet’s regret, Ireland has a wide gastronomy, with fine products and the portions are for people with a good appetite. Yet, you will always finish your plate, trust me!

On our trip through Ireland we never got tired of eating good soups and creams like the omnipesent leek and potato soup, of pies in all their infinite forms whether sweet or savoury, of fish and chips, of stews like the Irish beef and Guiness stew, as well as of game, fish and a few cakes.

Well, here we go. Today we are going to prepare a recipe that I love and that is very easy to make. However, it needs a little more time. We were talking about pies, so here is a classic one: Dingle Pie!

Ingredients for 8 Dingle Pies:

For the dough:

• white flour: 500 g = 1 ¼ cup
• cold butter: 250 g = 1 cup; you can replace the butter with sunflower oil, if you prefer the dough a little lighter
• cold water: 120 ml = ½ cup
• eggs: 1

For the filling:

• chicken breast: 450 g; the original recipe is with lamb, but you can replace this with any other meet, as I did today
• onion: 1 big one
• carrot: 2 big ones
• potato: 1 medium-sized one
• celery: 1 or 2, as you prefer
• salt and freshly ground pepper
  

Time for preparation: 1 h – 1h 30 m

Time in the oven: 1 h at 180 °C

We will start with the dough since it will have to rest in the fridge for 20 minutes.

Sift the flour in a bowl and add the butter in small pieces. With your fingers, rub the pieces of butter with the flour. We are not going to knead the ingredients yet; first, we have to get the butter to crumble without forming a homogenous dough with the flour. Through this, our dough will be much airier later. Once this is done, add the water and knead first in the bowl and then on the floured worktop. Form a ball, protect it with plastic film and keep it in the fridge for at least 20 minutes.

And now the knives. Cut all the ingredients for the filling into small pieces, a little more than half a centimetre. Put them all in a bowl, add salt and pepper and mix well.

Preheat the oven to 180 °C, upper and lower heat.

Take the dough out of the fridge and set aside one third of it. Roll out the rest of the dough on the worktop to a thickness of 1-2 mm. Cut the dough into 8 circles with a diameter of 11-12 cm, I use a soup bowl for this. Distribute the filling in the centre of each of the circles.

Take the dough you set aside earlier and roll it out on the worktop as before. Cut into 8 circles of 10 cm in diameter. Cover each pie with a circle of dough. Fold the edge of the bottom pie towards its top and press with a finger to give it a nice shape. With a small sharp knife, cut a hole in the middle of the lid of the pie, so that the steam can escape during baking.

Prepare the baking tray with baking paper and put the Dingle pies on it. Paint the pies with beaten egg. Bake them in the oven for about 1 hour until golden.

You can eat the Dingle pies both hot or cold, but I cannot resist eating them fresh from the oven.

Did you know about Dingle pies or any other form of pies before? Do you prefer sweet or salty pies?