The Crusty Chronicles. Savories from Bakeries.

[Anna N]

So @Kerry Beal and I are a little lost without our annual Manitoulin Island blog. But Kerry thought it might be fun to explore the range of savoury pastries offered by our local bakeries. We seem to have an abundance of bakeries offering meat pies, sausage rolls and assorted other savoury things. There is the British Pride Bakery here,  That Pie Place, and Ernie’s Meat Market just to mention three. 
 

in the past I had meat pies from Ernie’s which were fantastic.

 

this time Kerry visited British Pride Bakery, took a couple of photographs:

 

 

 

and purchased the following:

 

 

on the left is a steak and kidney pie for me. On the right is a beef and mushy pea pie for Kerry and in the middle are two pork sausage rolls for me. 
 

Kerry had to phone the bakery to discover how to distinguish between the two pies. I knew that they had available a Pokémon type card with a key to the secret. Hopefully we will get one of these cards next time! But a phone call garnered the information that the pie with the little tiny ball of pastry would be the mushy pea one. The ball of pastry represents a pea. 
 

So we will each sample our wares and make copious tasting notes so that we can compare with similar offerings from other bakeries in the area. (I do have to wonder how many other bakeries will be offering something similar to beef and mushy peas!)

 

We hope that this will offer some amusement to some of you at least. 
 

only slightly off-topic for those of you who are not interested in pastry but love a good car crash! Everybody is OK now we understand. 
Click

[heidih]

Well ya know in Los Angeles we only eat kale and green smoothies so such pastries are not on deck.  However, when my son was young we would trek to Chinatown  couple times a year and the bakeries there had a mix of sweet and savory. Things like ham and cheese in a slightly sweet flaky pastry. Reminded me of bastilla without the the flavor complexity.  My Vietnamese market also sold an excellent meat hand pie (Caribbean style as weekend customers were muchly Island) The dough was orange with annatto. 

[ElsieD]

@Anna N  Quite the car crash.  John tells me it's not far from his mother's.

[blue_dolphin]

Ooooh!  You guys are so creative.  This should be fun.  I've been missing the annual Manitoulin trek, too.  While I can't say that idea of a mushy pea pie sends me into raptures, I'm looking forward to hearing more as I do love savory pastries!

 

I'll have to check what might be available from bakeries in my area.  

I have been hoarding one last Pastel de Carne (meat pie) in my freezer from Portos, a local Cuban bakery.  I purchased a small stash from them back at the beginning of the pandemic.

Photo and description from their website: A light and flaky puff pastry filled with picadillo (ground beef, onions, peppers, and Spanish seasonings).  

In honor of this thread, maybe I'll place another order and get some of their chicken empanadas while I'm at it!

Edited August 9, 2020 by blue_dolphin (log)

[Kerry Beal]

Not my best photography - more important to get the child fed.

 

 

10 min CSO steam bake 350º F

 

 

 

 

Tasted like it had a sprinkling of old cheddar under the top crust. Not quite what I was expecting - but the child was happy!

[weinoo]

4 hours ago, Anna N said:

So we will each sample our wares and make copious tasting notes so that we can compare with similar offerings from other bakeries in the area. (I do have to wonder how many other bakeries will be offering something similar to beef and mushy peas!)

 

My ex-first wife (okay, my only ex-wife) was British. She had a strong love of mushy peas; talked about them constantly. Must've been Proustian. Fortunately, I could never find them in the grocery stores back in the day, back in San Jose.

[kayb]

My favorite savory pastry has to be the pig in a blanket -- cocktail sausage wrapped in some kind of dough and baked. Although I've made the hand pies with picadillo, too, and they're pretty stunning (I do love me some picadillo, with lots and lots of olives and raisins).

 

And there is nothing, NOTHING better than a fresh sausage and biscuit secured from the gas station about 6:30 a.m. as one sets out on a road trip somewhere.

 

Sigh. One of the casualties of celiac disease.

 

Edited August 10, 2020 by kayb (log)

[lindag]

On our ski trips in Oregon some years ago our must-have stop on the way up the mountain was to McDonalds for a sausage biscuit breakfast.

[Anna N]

So I was able to soundly smack 

@Kerry Beal around the head and ears with a wet noodle in order to extract further information about her thoughts on the beef and mushy pea pie. 
 

These are the Crusty Chronicles so it’s important that we know something about the crust. Kerry described the crust as somewhere between puff pastry and short crust pastry. She felt it would definitely have been better with short crust. She also was disturbed by the addition of the cheddar cheese. So all in all I suspect she will not be rushing back to buy another one of these. 
 

Sometime yesterday between lunch and dinner I decided to try one of the sausage rolls. I reheated it in the Breville  smart oven at 350° for 10 minutes. 
 

 

 

I don’t know about you but some thing about this does not say “sausage roll” to me.

 

I was disturbed by the texture. I could barely detect the difference between the pastry and the filling. 
 

The pastry was not at all what I expect from puff pastry. I’m inclined to go along with Kerry that it is some sort of hybrid between puff pastry and short crust pastry.

 

to my palate it was lacking in seasoning of any kind. I suppose I should have got up and found some mustard to go with it but I really wanted to sample it just as it came.

 

I really did have a hard time with this. I managed to choke down 1/2 of the sausage roll but could not bring myself to finish it. As an aside, I find these giant sausage rolls at odds with my previous experience of sausage rolls being a one- or two-bite affair.

 

I will put the other sausage roll in the freezer for Kerry to pick up for Kira. She has an unsophisticated palate and will probably enjoy it. 
 

I have actually been testing sausage rolls over the past few weeks from various places and none of them have come even close to my expectations. This leads me to believe that the fault may be with my expectations rather than with the sausage rolls. 

 

[Kim Shook]

11 minutes ago, Anna N said:

So I was able to soundly smack 

@Kerry Beal around the head and ears with a wet noodle in order to extract further information about her thoughts on the beef and mushy pea pie. 
 

These are the Crusty Chronicles so it’s important that we know something about the crust. Kerry described the crust as somewhere between puff pastry and short crust pastry. She felt it would definitely have been better with short crust. She also was disturbed by the addition of the cheddar cheese. So all in all I suspect she will not be rushing back to buy another one of these. 
 

Sometime yesterday between lunch and dinner I decided to try one of the sausage rolls. I reheated it in the Breville  smart oven at 350° for 10 minutes. 
 

 

 

 

 

I may have been watching too much British Baking Show, but that pastry looks raw to me.  

[Anna N]

18 hours ago, blue_dolphin said:

Photo and description from their website: A light and flaky puff pastry filled with picadillo (ground beef, onions, peppers, and Spanish seasonings).  

I would have a little difficulty getting my teeth around one of these. I love Picadillo. Actually obtaining one of course would be much more challenging. Thanks so much for sharingI 

[Anna N]

17 hours ago, weinoo said:

 

My ex-first wife (okay, my only ex-wife) was British. She had a strong love of mushy peas; talked about them constantly. Must've been Proustian. Fortunately, I could never find them in the grocery stores back in the day, back in San Jose.

Mushy peas are definitely an acquired taste. It’s a taste I never acquired to the horror of my British relatives. 

[Anna N]

1 hour ago, kayb said:

My favorite savory pastry has to be the pig in a blanket -- cocktail sausage wrapped in some kind of dough and baked.

I have never understood the appeal of this particular preparation. I suspect I would learn to enjoy sausage and biscuits but I must admit that I have never had the chance to try. 

[Anna N]

1 hour ago, lindag said:

On our ski trips in Oregon some years ago our must-have stop on the way up the mountain was to McDonalds for a sausage biscuit breakfast.

Who knew McDonald’s made such a thing? Apparently not me!

[Anna N]

7 minutes ago, Kim Shook said:

I may have been watching too much British Baking Show, but that pastry looks raw to me.  

You may be onto something there. My eyesight is such that I would struggle to notice that. But it was definitely a very strange texture and uncooked pastry might account for that. I had better tell Kerry to make sure that it’s cooked before she feeds the second one to Kira. 

[ElsieD]

9 minutes ago, Kim Shook said:

I may have been watching too much British Baking Show, but that pastry looks raw to me.  

That was my first thought, as well.

[Okanagancook]

I agree, the pastry looks under cooked.  The sausage meat looks kind of mushy and not formed into a log that holds it’s shape.

The outside isn’t very brown either..reinforcing the notion that is is under baked.  Pity.

[Anna N]

On to the steak and kidney pie. I was really looking forward to this one.

 

 

Reheated per the instructions from the bakery – – 360°F for 18 to 24 minutes. I went for eightteen minutes. 
 

 

Upturned into a bowl. 
 

 

 

Broken into and one rather large piece of kidney speared. The kidney was a bit on the chewy side and I prefer mine to be cut smaller than this.
 

The beef was tender and had quite a lot of flavor. But it’s the crust that gets me. There’s just something about it that is wrong. I tried but in the end I had to leave this to the compost heap:

 

The best I can see is that the pastry is pasty. Not the winner I had hoped for. Stay tuned it may take a little while to acquire further experimental matter Not the winner I had hoped for.
 

Stay tuned as it may take a little while to acquire further experimental matter 

 

 

[ElsieD]

That pastry is, I'm embarrassed to say, better than any pastry I could wrestle up.  Pastry has never been my strong suit.  I buy Pilsbury when I need it.

[TicTac]

So nice to see you ladies back in action together (albeit distanced!)

 

One of the unfortunate things of having gone Gluten Free (due to a child with a Celiac diagnosis) is missing out on baked goods (breads, pastries, you name it).

 

I will say however; if you are ever in the Newmarket/Aurora area, check out Maid's Cottage.  They do a fantastic gluten free crust (dare you to tell the difference) and some of the most unreal butter tarts I have had!

 

 

[Kim Shook]

@Anna N - it just looks gummy to me.  I recently had a store-bought quiche that was the same way.  That got tossed, too.

[Anna N]

1 hour ago, TicTac said:

So nice to see you ladies back in action together (albeit distanced!)

 

One of the unfortunate things of having gone Gluten Free (due to a child with a Celiac diagnosis) is missing out on baked goods (breads, pastries, you name it).

 

I will say however; if you are ever in the Newmarket/Aurora area, check out Maid's Cottage.  They do a fantastic gluten free crust (dare you to tell the difference) and some of the most unreal butter tarts I have had!

 

 

Just out of curiosity I decided to see just how far I would have to travel. According to Alexa it would be about 84 km. Probably not gonna happen. It’s a shame because it sounds amazing. My daughter prefers to go gluten-free and butter tarts would definitely check all of the right boxes for her. Thank you for sharing. 

[TicTac]

7 minutes ago, Anna N said:

Just out of curiosity I decided to see just how far I would have to travel. According to Alexa it would be about 84 km. Probably not gonna happen. It’s a shame because it sounds amazing. My daughter prefers to go gluten-free and butter tarts would definitely check all of the right boxes for her. Thank you for sharing. 

84km is a bit of a hike - even for a good tart!

 

My pleasure.  Wonder if they ship?  I know some of their tarts are carried at some retailers - might be an option to check out as well?

 

 

[Kerry Beal]

Here’s what 20 minutes at 350F does to improve the sausage roll above. Pastry much flakier indeed but still not a fabulous sausage roll. 
 

 

[Okanagancook]

With that picture, it seems a little stingy on the meat filling too.