I love making pie, I somehow feel that I am connecting with my mom and my gran who made pies on a weekly basis. It is like a labor of love for your husband and children and let's face it spending a whole morning in the kitchen making pastry while the meat is slowly cooking on the stove,
does have a homey ring to it, doesn't it? sadly though, I don't know about you, but I certainly don't have mornings that I can devote to pie making anymore so what now?...
Come to think of it, I have a suspicion that my mom also did not have those pie making mornings and that those mornings died with Julia Child, because my mom gave me a recipe for pastry that tastes like buttery puff pastry, it flakes like buttery puff pastry, but it defies every rule there is about puff pastry. No cold fingers, cold butter, cold table top, no nothing! This pastry is fast, cheap and really is child's play pastry!
As for the Cornish Pie filling, the original Cornish filling was beef, sliced or diced potato, swede (also known as a yellow turnip) and onion.The original Cornish Pie was also made by putting the raw filling inside a pastry case and then baking it.Where exactly this pie comes from  is not clear, but the earliest recorded recipe is from Devon in 1510, though there is a possibility that people from Cornwall were making pasties for thousands of years prior, hence the name Cornish Pie!Due to the migration and the spread of Cornish miners, these pies are now being made worldwide and even in my kitchen!
I have one other confession to make though and that is that I cook my filling first!
This is just the recipe for the filling, the pastry you have to make in advance and in case you missed the child's play pastry link, here it is again!


Cornish Pie

Makes 8

Ingredients
1 kg ground beef or lean beef mince
1 large onion chopped
olive oil
3 carrots diced finely
3 potatoes, diced finely
about 125ml chopped parsley
2 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
salt/pepper
2 cloves

1 tbsp tomato paste

Heat the oil in a pot and add the onions, saute until cooked. Add the beef and brown slightly. Now add all the other ingredients, lower the heat and place the lid on the pot. Allow to slowly cook, but keep a watchful eye on it. If it becomes to dry, just add a little water. You want a fairly dry crumbly texture for your filling. Cool the filling and when you are ready to make your pies, remove the pastry from the fridge and roll out on a floured surface. I use a small plate to cut circles, because it makes a nice size pie! Place the filling in the middle of the circle, brush the edge of the pastry with water and bring the two sides of the pastry up. Crimp the sides together with your fingers and place on a baking sheet. Brush with an egg wash and place bake in the fridge for about 10 minutes. Preheat oven to 200C. Bake th epies until the pastry is brown, flaky and delicious. In my house we eat it with copious amounts of tomato sauce, yum!!