Читать книгу Beginner's Guide to DIY & Home Repair - Kathryn Hawkins - Страница 24

Because pastry has a high fat content it melts easily and becomes greasy, and therefore, most usually pie fillings are cold when the pie is assembled. Pastry requires cooking at a relatively high temperature for a reasonably short time so if your filling is raw you need to ensure that it will cook thoroughly in the time it takes to cook the pastry. For this reason, many fillings are cooked and cooled in advance. Slow cooked meats such as stewing beef and mutton are casseroled first and then cooled before being used as a filling. Once they are cold, scrape off any fat that forms on the top to make the filling less greasy. These fillings benefit from a “second cooking” when reheated under a pie crust as they have more flavour and become meltingly tender.

Try to avoid adding too much gravy, sauce or cooking liquor to a pie filing, especially if the pie has a pastry bottom; excess liquid will be absorbed by raw pastry and prevent it from becoming crisp, and it may also leak out over the sides of the dish, spoiling the appearance of the finished pie and result in insufficient filling retained under the pastry crust.

As with any food that requires reheating, make sure your filling cools as quickly as possible and is then covered and stored in the fridge until required for pie making. Always reheat pie fillings thoroughly – a digital food probe or thermometer inserted into the centre of a cooked pie is an ideal way to dispel any doubts you may have about internal temperature.

If using a chilled filling, let the filling stand at room temperature for about 20 mins before cooking to that it reheats quicker. Delicate textured pie fillings like fish, eggs and soft fruit are only lightly cooked beforehand or used raw in order to preserve flavour and texture.