Meat Pies with Sour Creamed Baked Potatoes

One benefit of being a foodie is other people love to share some of their signature dishes and recipes with you. A couple we know well immigrated from Lancestershire, England a number of years ago. She is a fabulous cook who has had a good deal of experience as owner and operator of two English style pubs in Canada as well as experience in England. She makes lovely meat pies that were always a hit at her last pub and is now selling them at a weekly farmer's market. Her husband dropped off a couple at my husband's office on Thursday so we had them for dinner Saturday night.

Meat Pie

Meat pies or some form of meat pies have been a staple in most cultures for time ever. Essentially a meat pie is some type of thick stew (eg. meat with vegetables and gravy) as opposed to other pastry covered meat based dishes like pasties that do not have the gravy as part of the filling. They are usually rich and flavourful on the savoury side with nice flakey crusts. The meat pies were pre-baked so all I had to do was re-heat in the oven. Trust me these meat pies are nothing like those store bought meat pies.

My husband's meat pie was beef with vegetables. The crust was lovely, nice and flakey. The filling was rich, thick and flavourful! I served the meat pies with green beans and sour creamed baked potatoes (recipe follows).

Steak & Kidney Pie

My meat pie was steak and kidney, a traditional British pub fare made by topping a filling of chopped steak and beef, lamb or pig kidney in a sauce then topped with crust with or without the bottom crust. This version of steak and kidney pie also had potatoes in with the meat but no other vegetables. The crust gets its deep golden sheen by brushing it with milk before baking.

Sour creamed baked potatoes make a wonderful side for steak and kidney pie. The original recipe I had said to use double cream and lemon but I substituted sour cream. The results were quite good!

Sour Creamed Baked Potatoes

6 medium baking potatoes
¾ sour cream
1 tsp prepared horseradish

Wash potatoes and prick with a fork. Bake at 180ºF (350º until soft. Remove from oven. Cut in half. Scoop out the inside of the potatoes leaving about an eighth inch of the potato on the flesh. Mash the scooped out potato with sour cream and horseradish. Spoon back into the potato skins. Bake at 180ºC (350ºF) with the steak and kidney pies for 25 to 30 minutes or until meat pies are cooked through and the tips of the potato filling begin browing.