Smoked Corned Beef Pies

Earlier this week, I ended up smoking a corned beef, sometimes referred to as pastrami. The cook was recorded on my other blog over at Pacific Rim BBQ at this link. I decided that I could use this to make a version of corned beef pasty, which then, somehow, morphed into the idea of a pot pie. I had plenty of corned beef left, and I am quite tired of it. It needed a new spin.

I made a basic pie dough for the pot pie, except I cut the sugar amount in half and went with some ground up palm sugar, instead of regular sugar. The pasty dough, which this was a bad choice, I used regular pie dough, which was quite short with both butter and shortening, but, had the full complement of turbinado sugar. This should have been filled with apples, but, I digress.

Filled Dough-Pot Pie

I took some carrots, Yukon Gold potatoes, yellow onions and sliced up Brussels Sprouts (my choice of Cole crop, instead of cabbage for St. Patrick's Day) and fried them up in a large skillet, then added the diced smoked corned beef, this was your basic hash. I seasoned with some black pepper and a couple of cloved of very finely diced garlic. About all it needed, what with all the flavor from the rub and smoke.

Smoked Corned Beef Hash

The overall has came out great, very flavorful with a solid punch of flavor, this would be needed as I intended to add a sauce to the pot pie. I made up a 2/3 cup or so of a mustard cream sauce, it was mainly a mix of white port, prepared mustard (I used brown spicy mustard), Red Boat fish sauce and water. This was a little bit aromatic, but heat would calm it down and I wanted a solid mustard profile. Since I had no milk, I ended up adding a little vanilla ice cream to bring the volume up to the 1/2 cup-ish mark. I also added an egg yolk, this was also a mistake. So I ended up with 2/3 cup by the time I was done. There was an egg wash as well, which had a little palm sugar to aid in browning.

Sauce and Glaze

The dough was rolled, things were filled, pies were sealed and shoved into a 385F oven for 45 minutes. Upon release from the oven, the pies had an incredible and perhaps overly dark color, which was the glaze. Palm sugar, mistake number 3. The pies were done perfectly though.

Out of the Oven

Back to mistake 1, the pasty turned out fine except the pie dough was much too sweet, and delicate, which a pasty dough should not have been. I can deal with the flakiness, as I am not a Cornish miner and did not need to carry it in my pocket, but the sweet was distracting. Still, this was not a bad pie, the hash and rub spiciness came through the sweetness on the finish. It was very good, could have been great though.

Smoked Corned Beef Hash Pasty

The pot pie crust was perfect, the filling was moist and delicious, the flavors were spot on. Sadly, the sauce was not there, at all, the egg yolk, mistake 2, had cooked and did not stay in emulsion, the liquid was just not enough to stay in the pie. I like a saucy pie, not a moist one. Still, the flavor, texture of meat and vegetables and the crust were perfect. This was, despite the sauce issue, was a great dish.

Smoked Corned Beef Pot Pie

Defitely needs a little refinement in the sauce component, I might even go with something like a sherry sauce next time. Still, an excellent dinner was had.