After being very pleased by the Andrew James Halogen Oven, I thought that I would try their pie maker. I followed the instructions on preparing it for use and it passed the first hurdle of not sticking with flying colours. The instructions for pie making are just limited to three types of filling so I just invented my own. I bought a chilled pack of puff pastry and one of shortcrust and just went for it.
First attempt - steak, mushroom and onion pies cooked in a red wine gravy. Cooked the filling - rolled out the pastry, used the cutting rings and turned out 10 excellent juicy pies from about 1lb of steak. Next day repeated with shortcrust pastry, with an apple, cinnamon and nutmeg filling. A bit messier but still excellent pies, only 9 though this time from a pack of pastry.
Things learned
- if you put the pastry in the pie maker and dont assemble the pies quickly the shortcrust pastry will shrink
- puff pastry seems to work well as a savoury shell for meat, it isn't very flaky but seems to work otherwise keeping all the gravy in
- my meat pies took nearer 10 minutes to cook
- if the top crust does not touch the top of the cooker it will take longer to cook - can be rectified under a grill!
- cleaning is easy - you just wipe it
- if you don't feel one pie is big enough for a main meal - eat two pies!
- it stands on its end so takes up very little storage space.
Conclusion - great fun - and excellent no hassle food.