Actually, nothing is as nice as pie, and few pies are as nice as Mary Morrin's. Made by hand with delicate care, Morrin's pies show pie-making at its delicious best. From early morning, every Thursday, Mary and her husband Austin will be hard at work making the 60 individual pies and the 30 large pies they produce each week to sell at the Naas Country Market, in Co Kildare.
There are chicken and ham pies - the most popular of all - and mushroom and bacon; there are little pear and Roquefort pies, and creamy salmon with dill and fennel. The big sausage and bacon plaits with their tender lattice of pastry seduced my four-year-old in seconds. His parents, meantime, were blown away by Mary's fabulous Stilton and Apple tarte tatin, a beautiful commingling of sweet and savoury flavours with a crumbly, buttery, rich pastry.
A key factor in their deliciousness is the pastry, which manages to be at once wonderfully light and pleasingly wholesome. But one can see from the directions which Mary gives for the tarte tatin, below, that care and consideration are at the core of this splendid baking. More than any other food, pies resist the compromises of mass production.
Organic flours from Inisglas and Dove's Farm, Mary's own Jersey butter from her two cows, flavoursome apples such as the James Grieve variety, the indispensable Maldon sea salt, Bunalun cane sugar, free-range chickens for the chicken and ham pies, organic vegetables, their own beef - these ingredients explain why these pies taste so good. The folk of Naas who snap up these pies on a Friday morning enjoy the classic pairing of lamb and cumin with its marvellous hot water pastry, a style of pastry which Morrin also uses in her steak and kidney pies, and there are also wild salmon pies with sorrel and capers, the sesame-seed crusted vegetable pies, little tarts with roasted tomatoes and vegetables.
Morrin plans to open a farm shop by her house, just outside Kilcock, and here she plans to create her own "mini country market, with all the home cooking things such as pies, butters, fresh cheeses, sausages and so on that can come off the farm".
Mary Morrin, Belgard, Kilcock, Co Kildare, 01 6284411. Naas Country Market opens at 10.30 a.m, on Fridays. It is imperative to get there early.
Mary Morrin's Stilton and Apple Tarte Tatin
The Pastry:
1lb flour, mixed half and half Inisglas pastry flour with white flour, perhaps Dove's Farm
Pinch of Maldon sea salt (and sometimes some sesame seeds)
1/2 lb Jersey butter
1/4 lb lard
Iced water
Rub the flours and the fats together by hand until you achieve a breadcrumb texture. Now, add iced water little by little until the dough comes together and pat it into a neat, smooth ball shape. Cover with clingfilm and place in the fridge for a few hours. Mary likes to make the dough a day in advance and to let it rest overnight in the fridge.
When you are ready to finish the tarte, roll the dough out on a floured surface to a thickness of about a quarter-inch. If using small frying pans, then cut out saucer-sized circles of dough to drape over the apples.
The filling:
1oz Jersey butter
3-4 hard eating-apples (I like James Grieve)
1oz sugar
4 1/2-5oz Stilton
Pepper
Mary uses small, individual cast-iron frying pans. Begin with an ounce or so of Jersey butter, melting this in the pan, arrange the sliced apples in an overlapping circle and allow the sliced apples to fry gently for a few minutes. Add approximately 1 oz caster or fine sugar (Bunalun cane sugar). Heat the oven to 180C/350 F/Gas Mark 4 When the apples have softened, place the pastry circle on top and pop into the oven until slightly brown. When done, turn over on to a pan or plate. Put some good Stilton on top, thinly sliced, and return to oven for cheese to melt.
This recipe also works very well for red onion tarte tatin, where Mary also adds some balsamic vinegar.
Myrtle Allen's Spiced Mutton Pies
Myrtle Allen ennobled the classic Dingle pie with her recipe for spiced mutton pies in the ageless The Ballymaloe Cookbook (Gill & Macmillan, widely available). These pies are still made and sold in the Allen family's Crawford Gallery Cafe in Cork, and they are amongst my favourite things. You will have to search hard for a supply of mutton (Bresnan's butchers in the Cork Covered Market can prove to be a good source), but even if made with milder flavoured lamb, as Mary Morrin's pies are, these hot-water pastry pies are superb.
450g (1lb) boneless mutton
275g (9oz) onions
275g (9oz) carrots
1 teaspoon cumin seed
300ml (10 fl oz) stock
2 tablespoons flour
Salt and pepper
450g (1lb) flour
255-285g (9-10oz) approx butter
175ml (6fl oz) water
Pinch of salt (For two 16cm x 6.5cm/6in x 1 1/2in pies, making 6-8 helpings)
Put bones and vegetable trimmings in cold water and simmer to make a stock, if none is already available. Cut surplus fat away from the meat. Chop it finely and render it down in a heavy pot over a medium heat. Cut the remaining meat into small, neat pieces about the size of sugar lumps. Cut the vegetables into slightly smaller dice and toss them in the fat in the bottom of the pot, leaving them to cook for three to four minutes. Remove the vegetables and toss the meat in remaining fat until the colour turns. Stir in flour and spice.
Cook gently for two minutes and blend in the stock gradually. Bring to the boil, stirring occasionally. Add the vegetables and leave to simmer in a covered pot. If using young lamb, 30 minutes will be sufficient; an older animal can take up to 2 hours. Meanwhile, make the pastry cases.
Sieve flour and salt into a mixing bowl, and make a well in the middle. Put butter and water into a saucepan and bring to the boil. Pour the liquid all at once into the flour and mix together quickly; beat until smooth. At first, the pastry will be too soft to handle, but as it cools it can be rolled out 5mm (1/8 1/4 inch) thick to fit two tins 15cm/6in in diameter, 4cm/ 1 1/2in high. It can also be made into individual pies. Keep back one third of the pastry for lids.
Fill up the cases with the meat mixture, which should be almost, but not quite, cooked - and cooled a little. Moisten the pastry at the top of the pies and place the lids on, pinching them tightly together. Cut a slit in the lid, brush with egg-wash. Bake the pies for 40 minutes approximately at 190 C/375 F/Gas 5.
They can be eaten hot or cold and are good for picnics.