Put a spin on this traditional French-Canadian meat pie with pasture-raised Bison. These single-serve hand pies make a great starter or hors d’oeuvre for cocktail hour, or late-night snack on New Year’s Eve. Rich, buttery crust mixed with warm, fragrant spices – this will have everyone feeling festive and cozy. Keep the recipe link handy – you might get a few requests!
Ingredients
Pastry
- 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 cup ice cold water
- 1 cup cold unsalted butter
- 1 tsp kosher salt
Filling
- 1 lb Thunder Ridge ground bison meat
- 1 lb lean ground pork
- 2 medium-sized yellow or white flesh potatoes, peeled
- 1 large onion
- 1 cup beef, bison or chicken stock
- 5 cloves minced garlic
- 1 tbsp Savory
- 1 tsp Ground cloves
- 1 tsp Ground Cinnamon
- 1 tsp Sage
- 1 tsp Thyme
- 1 tsp Celery Salt
- 1 tsp Season with salt and pepper
Egg wash
- 2 large beaten eggs
Butter crust
- Cut chilled butter into small diced cubes and put back into fridge to stay cold.
- In a food processor or large bowl, measure out flour and salt.
- Either using a pastry cutter or the pulse setting on the food processor, cut butter in until the pieces of butter are no bigger than the size of a pea.
- Slowly add ice water and either pulse or hand mix until a shaggy dough starts to form. Add a bit more water until you can gather all of the pastry into a ball, but without it being too sticky and wet.
- Shape dough ball into a round, wrap in cling wrap and refrigerate until your filling is cold and ready.
- Roll out 100 gram portions of dough on lightly floured surface to about ¼ cm thick – the dough will be stiff at first, and may crack, but shore up the edges and continue rolling.
Filling
- Start by adding a tablespoon of cooking oil to a large skillet, and turn the heat to medium. Once pan is hot, but not smoking, add the onion and garlic and stir until fragrant (about 4 minutes).
- Next, crumble in the ground bison and pork along with seasonings and sauté for about 5 minutes. Add in the stock and scrape down the sides to mix all the flavors together. Simmer on medium-low heat until the liquid has just evaporated, roughly 30 minutes.
- Using a box grater (cheese grater), grate your potatoes into the mixture, stir until mixed, and remove from heat. Let cool for 1 hour, or overnight in the fridge.
- Weigh out and place 80-100 gram scoop of your filling into the middle of your rolled out round of crust. Brush outer 1-2 cms of the dough round with water, fold round in half to make a semi-circle pastry filled with your meat filling. The shape is similar to an empanada or calzone.
- Crimp edges with tines of a fork, or flute using your fingers.
- For the egg wash, simply beat two eggs in a bowl vigorously until combined. Have a pastry brush ready.
- With some egg wash, brush the outside of the oval crust. This will make the crust a golden, glossy colour. Make two small cuts with a fork or the tip of a knife in the top of the hand pies to let steam escape.
- Bake at 375 degrees F for 20 minutes or until golden brown.
