Saturday, 31 January 2015

Beef plate pie memories



I’m just waiting for the minced beef filling to cool down before I use it to fill a pie for dinner.

This is a meal I associate with my brother. He continued to live at home with my parents until my mother died. Without her to mediate, life became a series of rows with my father – they were too alike, too volatile as personalities to live together. Eventually he found himself a flat of his own.

At this time he took to coming up to visit & cadge a meal from us. In those days money was so tight I counted every penny & bought exactly what we needed for a week’s food for the two of us. Unfortunately my brother would say he was coming on the day he was coming. Often he just turned up out of the blue. We shopped on Wednesday, market day when often there were bargains to be had as far as vegetables at least. He came at the weekend when he wasn’t working & we had no money left to buy extra food. He never volunteered to pay anything towards his food or to take us out for a meal for once. He was like that.

On one occasion I had bought 8oz minced beef for a curry or something. The result was this pie where some potato stretches out the meat making a satisfying meal for three. Ever since I’ve thought of him whenever I make this pie.

I’ve not made it for quite a while. I hope we still enjoy it.

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