A Whole New Look At Mincemeat Pie

Mincemeat pie was originally made to use left over meat or pieces of the meat that were not as desirable and the sugar helped the meat not spoil. 

Around World War II mincemeat pies slowly had the meat phased out of them as rationing became a standard. Most people today think of mincemeat (although meatless) almost as a dessert and some people do eat it for a dessert! But the idea of this recipe is to add fruit to the meat with the dessert spices of modern Western culture: cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, etc... This recipe uses some of those spices but it is definitly a dinner pie.

Back in the day the meat was beef, suet (hard fat around the kidneys and loins of beef and lamb), or anything they could get. As usual I decided to make this without a trip to the store and I looked in the fridge and there was a pork steak. There were also A LOT of cranberries in my freezer and thus was born this new mincemeat pie.

I used a 1 lb pork steak but really any meat you want could be substituted.

Boil:

1 lb pork steak

1 cup chicken stock

6 0z fresh cranberries (1/2 bag usually)

Soft boil until the meat is cooked enough to take it out and mince it. Return the meat to the pot and add:

1 cup apple cranberry juice

pinch lemon zest

1/4 cup candied ginger, finely chopped

3/4 cup raisins

1/4 tsp powedered ginger

1 tsp garam marsala spice

1/2 cup sugar

Bring to a hard boil and then back down to medium high heat for about 15 minutes. The cranberries should burst. Then dissolve:

2 tsp potato or corn starch

2 tbsp water

Then add that mixture to the pot and stir in while it thickens. It should thicken a lot at this point and no longer be runny, more like a gel. Turn off heat and let cool. Heat oven to 475 degrees. While cooling combine:

1/2 cup butter, COLD (preferably just out of the refridgerator)

2 cups flour

1 tsp salt

Mix ingredients until uniform in texture and crumbly, then add  1/4 cup milk. Split into two halves and roll each out on a floured surface to the diameter of your pie pan. Line the pie dish with one half of the crust and add the cooled (or mostly cooled) cranberry-meat mixture. Then place the other half of the crust mixture on top and make some slits to let out steam. You can make designs by reserving a little bit of the crust mixture and using cookie cutters or a knife to freehand designs. 

Bake for 15-20 minutes or until the crust is a golden brown. 

This recipe would probably also be a good autumn dish with turkey or chicken breast meat. It's also very easy to change this recipe to include different dried fruits or different fresh ones to give it a whole new theme. For instance apples are usually part of a mincemeat recipe and they would even be good in this recipe, feel free to play around!