Pie Floater 🥧

Method

1. 1

   For the pies: cook minced beef with diced onion until browned, stir in flour, then tomato sauce and enough stock to make a thick, savoury mince that will not run when baked.

2. 2

   Line a greased pie tray with shortcrust, fill with the cooled mince, cap with pastry discs, crimp the edges and cut a steam vent; bake at 200°C for 25 minutes until the lids are gold and the filling is bubbling.

3. 3

   For the pea soup, sweat diced onion, carrot and celery in oil, add split peas, ham and bay with plenty of stock, and simmer until the peas completely collapse, 40 to 45 minutes.

4. 4

   Blend half the soup and stir it back — a proper floater soup is thick enough to hold a pie up at the surface like a raft, yet loose enough to sip.

5. 5

   Ladle the hot pea soup into a deep cup or bowl.

6. 6

   Drop one pie, whole, into the soup so it floats, squash a generous blob of tomato sauce onto the pastry lid and eat it with a spoon as the pie slowly drinks the soup.