Keeping my larder stocked is my recreation as well as part of my daily work and I love how I can ‘work’ at making my home run economically and smoothly yet it feels like my recreation time.
Yes, I am in love with the idea and romance of the old-fashioned pantry, just the way my grannies used to run their pantries and their mothers before them.
Last week I made this pantry diary entry:
Yesterday I started with my 2025 Olive harvest and today I need to cook up 2kg of fresh beef mince and encase it with crispy, buttery, home made pie pastry, all to freeze and eat later in the month. Buying in bulk quantities mean I save on costs per meal as long as I cook up and put the prepared food in the pantry – save, conserve, prepare, be frugal, be healthy and happy with pantry home-keeping.
And now that I have started eating this pie, the buttery pie pastry recipe I used is so rustic, delicious and healthy, that I want to share it with you.
Recipe for Brown ‘Tertkors’ / My Brown Flour Shortcrust Pie Topping
Note: This is another ANECDOTAL recipe – handed down through oral tradition from my farming family – its wholesome, quick and easy to remember.
Ingredients
1 Cup of brown flour (preferably stone ground flour)
1/2 cup of butter, chilled and finely diced
A pinch of sea salt, ground
A dash of cold water
1/2 tsp baking powder
Method
Place the brown flour in a mixing bowl. Add in your salt, mix. Add in the diced butter and mix lightly in to the flour and salt with your fingertips. Add half of the cold water and mix with a fork (adding more water if needed) until the mixture has just combined into one ball of pastry. It must be a stiff mixture that pulls away from the mixing bowl dish.
Cover the pastry with clingfilm and place in the fridge for 30 minutes.
After 30 minutes, cover a wide worksurface with flour, remove the pastry from the refrigerator and the bowl and place on the floured surface. Sprinkle more flour over the top of the pastry and then roll it out with a rolling pin. Use more flour as needed so that the pastry never sticks to the worksurface. It should be rolled to a slightly larger size than your pie dish. For this recipe, I used a 9 inch dish.
Place your pie dish upside down over the pastry and cut out the shape of the pie dish. (Reserve the offcuts to make patterns on the top of your pie for decoration).
Grease the pie dish, fill it with your cooked mince filling, then place the pastry over the top using a fork to press in the edges against the pie dish sides. (Decorate with pastry shapes as you wish).
Melt 1 tsp of butter in 100ml of milk and pour over the pastry cover.
Place pie dish in a preheated oven (190 degrees) for 15 to 20 minutes.
When its crispy and golden brown, remove and serve.
Please write to me at sara@nerinapantry.co.za if you would like the curried mince filling recipe.
