Square Pies

These are actually Pithiviers but we like to think inside the box, not in the round. Actually we just couldn't be bothered to cut the pastry out.

Get a nice hunk of meat suitable for pressure cooking (or braising, if you're being traditional) and cook the hell out of it. I did it with a leg of lamb in the pressure cooker - beautiful. Initial cook with a bunch of celery, an onions, salt and plenty of peppercorns. Oh and a garlic head cut in half.

When it's soft, take the meat out and shred. Strain the liquid, push through veggie goodness, return to pan and reduce the liquid until it goes syrupy. Because it was lamb and very fatty, I put a step in there where I cooled it down initially and skimmed some fat off. Well worth doing.

Return shredded meat to the liquid and if necessary give it another pressuring. Fry up (separately) whatever veggie flavourings you're putting in. I used slivered onions and red peppers, caramelized.

Mix the whole lot together, and if you can let it cool that's great.

Lay out your puff pastry sheets, cut each square into fours. If you can't be bothered to cut one smaller and one larger, you'll have to trim the edges at the end but that's not too onerous.

Get a ring mould (or if you've got a square one go for it) that leaves at least a 1 inch rim in the pastry and mound the filling into it on to of one of the pastry squares. Remove ring. Put another pastry square on top and tuck down the sides. At this point you'll have to trim the sides because the top will be shorter than the bottom (unless you've been clever beforehand and cut out a larger one for the top). Do so. Make indents with a fork around the edges to seal / make pretty. Egg wash the top of the pastry. Bake on hot until beautifully golden.

I found these particular ones were beautiful served with pureed pumpkin, with lots of butter and cinnamon sugar in it. Serves as a kind of sauce. Big hit with the kids.