Ground beef pies in ramekins

GROYND BEEF PIES IN RAMEKINS

Use ramekins that resemble small glasses.

Their base must be a circle 5 cm in diameter and their upper circle must have a diameter 7 cm.

The height of the beaker must be 5.5 cm.

These individual pies are delicious and are suitable for formal dinners.

Dough

Ingredients

125 grams of margarine

1 cup water

1 egg

Flour

Stuffing

Ingredients

90 grams of olive oil

1250 grams of ground beef

1 large dry onion

80 grams of wine

Salt to taste

Pepper

4 large ripe tomatoes for the sauce

Bechamel cream

Ingredients

180 g. margarine + the margarine you would use to grease the ramekins

200 g. all-purpose flour

2 liters of milk

Instructions

How to make the dough

Let the margarine in room temperature to soften. 
Put it in a bowl.

Pour in the bowl an egg and a cup of water.

Stir with a wire and add slowly the flour.

You are trying to make soft dough.

Your dough should be thicker than a cake batter.

Take some margarine with your fingers and butter the ramekins.

Take care to coat with margarine the base and also the sides of each ramekin.

Get with your fingers a piece of dough as a walnut.

Place this dough in a ramekin. With your finger coat its base and its sides with the dough.  

In this way you make the shell of a small atomic Tart.

Repeat this process on all ramekins.

From your dough you make 22-24 Tart shells.

How to prepare the stuffing

Put in a saucepan the oil and place the saucepan over medium heat.

Clean the onion, mince it and put it in the pan.

Sauté the onion, stir it often to prevent it from burning.

Put the ground beef in the saucepan and stir it.

Add salt and pepper to taste.

The ground beef should be cooked in low heat to produce its fluids.

Stir often and take care to break the lumps that form in the cooking process.

Pour the wine in the saucepan and stir again.

Leave it to braise and stir often to prevent sticking.

Beat the tomatoes in the blender.

Pour the pureed tomatoes in the saucepan and stir.

Let the meat simmer and to absorb almost all its fluids.

Remove the saucepan from the heat and leave it aside to cool a bit.  

With a large spoon divide equally the meat on all molds.

In every ramekin the ground beef rises just above its middle.

You should leave free space to put béchamel cream.

With this recipe you will make 22 to 24 pies in ramekins.

How to prepare the béchamel cream

Put two liters of milk in a pot.

Place the pot over medium heat to boil.

Put another pot on low heat and put the margarine in it.

Stir the margarine until it melts.

Pour the flour in the margarine and stir constantly.

Cook the flour until it gets beige color.

Pour with a spoon ladle the boiling milk little by little into the flour and stir.

Beat for two min the cream with a hand blender, to homogenize it.

Then stir with a ladle until the cream is about to boil.
The cream is delicious if you remove it from heat a min before boiling.

Turn off the heat and leave the cream aside to cool a bit.

With a large spoon put béchamel cream in every ramekin.

You should stop just before filling it.

With a brush coat the béchamel cream on top with a little melted margarine.

Place the pies in the oven, on the first rack from the bottom, next to each other.

Bake at 200 C degrees about an hour.

When the pies are ready they smell nicely and the surface of the béchamel cream has dark beige color.

Let the ramekins to cool completely.

With a knife unstuck each pie from its ramekin.

Turn the ramekin upside down on a platter. The pie comes out overturned.

Turn it again and bring the béchamel cream up.

    

                                                                                                                                                            

Traditional meat pie

Meat pie

Stuffing

Ingredients

1/2 kilo beef

1/2 kilo pork

1/2 kilo goat meat

 1.5 kilo leeks

1 TB oregano and half tsp pepper

120 g. olive oil

4 large dry onions

400 g. feta cheese

300 g. gruyere cheese

Instructions

Stuffing

Wash the meats, cut them in smaller pieces. Put them in a pot.

Pour water over them until it reaches 4 cm above these.

Place the pot over high heat.

Once the water starts to boil, lower the heat to medium.

Let the meat cook for two hours and then check if it is ready.

The meat is ready when it is tender and unsticks from the bones.

If it is ’n ready, boil it for longer time.

Remove the pot from the heat.

Leave the meat to cool and then clean it.

Remove the fats, the rinds, the tendons and all hard parts.

Cut with scissors the pieces of meat into pieces smaller than one cm in length.

Strain the broth of meat, to be sure that there are no small pieces of bones in it.

If the broth of meat is too much, do not use it all.

Place the chopped meat in saucepan and pour broth to cover them.

Save the left over broth in the freezer for another recipe.

Clean tow leeks, wash them and cut them in small rings.

Add in the pan the leeks, salt, oregano and pepper.

Cook the pieces of meat for another hour until they are almost melted.

Remove the sauce pan from the heat and let it aside for later use.

Clean the onions and mince them.

Clean the remaining leeks, and cut them into pieces 1.5 cm in length.

Wash them very well, changing the water at least three times, to remove the dirt and any small bugs that are hidden among the leaves.

Put another pot over medium heat.

Pour the oil in the pot and add the chopped onions.

Stir occasionally and cook them for a few min.

Add the chopped leeks in the pot and stir.

Wait for a few min until they become soft and tender.

Place the pieces of meat in the pot and stir.

Let them cook for 3-4 min.

Add cheeses in the pot and stir. Cook all these ingredients together for 2-3 minutes.

Take the pot with the stuffing from the heat and leave it aside.

Dough

Ingredients for the dough

150 grams of margarine

1/2 kilo of hard flour

1/2 kilo cornmeal

80 g. olive oil

3 tablespoons vinegar

Lukewarm water as needed to make smooth dough 

How to prepare the dough

Put the flour in a bowl.

In the center of it open with your hand a small puddle.

Pour into the puddle oil and vinegar.

Mix with your hand these ingredients.

Pour warm water into the puddle and knead.

You are trying to make soft dough that does not stick to hands.

To achieve this you may need to add a little flour or a little water.

When the dough you made is soft, cover it with clean towel and leave it in a warm place to rest.

It is better to prepare the dough the night before, because the next day it opens sheet easily.

How to open the sheet

Put the margarine in a pot. Place the pot over medium heat to melt the margarine.

Divide the dough into two approximately equal parts.

Sprinkle with cornmeal the surface on which you are going to work. 

Take a piece of dough and give it a circular shape.

Sprinkle with cornmeal onto the surface of the circular piece of dough and open with your hands sheet.

Sprinkle the top surface of the sheet with cornmeal and open it more with a rolling pin.

The sheet becomes larger with moderate thickness.

With a brush coat with margarine the sheet on top.

Sprinkle with cornmeal over the buttered sheet.

Fold the sheet in half so the two buttered and floured parts coincide.

Smear with margarine the top of the folded sheet and sprinkle with cornmeal.

Fold the sheet again in half.

This way your original sheet is quartet with smaller size.

Open the sheet to the dimensions of the pan you are going to use.

Make the sheet slightly larger, to cover the bottom and the sides of the pan in their lower part.

You can use a big pan having dimensions 31CH41CH5 centimeters, or two circular pans 28 cm in diameter each.

Assembling the pie 

Grease and flour the bottom of the pan with oil

Spread the sheet you have made over it.

Spread the filling evenly over that sheet.

In the same way as before open to quad sheet the other half of the dough.

Cover the pie with that sheet.

Smear the surface of the pie with olive oil.

With a sharp knife engrave the pie into pieces.  

Put the pie in the oven on the first rack from the bottom.

Cook at 160 C degrees for 60-70 min.

Eggplants stuffed with ground beef

AUBERGINES STUFFED WITH GROYND BEEF

Basis

Ingredients

8 large eggplants (250 g approx. each)

50 g. olive oil

Salt to taste

Stuffing

Ingredients

700 g. ground beef

2 large dry onions

4 cloves garlic

4 large ripe tomatoes

120 gr. olive oil

Salt and paper to taste

Bechamel Cream

Ingredients

1 liter homogenized milk

80 g. margarine

80 g. all purpose flour

Salt to taste

Instructions

Basis

Wash the eggplants and remove their stems.

Lay each eggplant horizontally and cut a slice from top surface.

Empty the eggplant with a knife or a spoon.

Each eggplant becomes an empty black cup.

Season with salt the inside of the emptied eggplants and coat them with oil.

Put the empted eggplants into a deep greased pan next to each other.

Place the pan in the oven on the first rack from the bottom.

Cover the pan with non-stick baking paper.

Bake the eggplant at 170 C degrees for 45 minutes.

Leave them covered in the oven.

Stuffing

Put olive oil in a saucepan. Place it over medium heat.

Peel the onions, dice them and put them in the saucepan.

Add the chopped garlic into the pot.

Stir them from time to time.

Let them cook until they become soft and tender.

Put the minced meat in the saucepan.

Stir the ground beef with a ladle to absorb oil.

Lower more the heat and the ground beef will produce all its fluids.

Let it cook slowly in them.

Break with a ladle the lumps that form as it boils.

Wash the tomatoes and puree them in the blender.

Add the tomato puree in the saucepan.

Add salt and pepper.

Let the meat to boil until it becomes soft and tender.

Bechamel

Put the milk in a pot and heat over medium heat.

Put the margarine in a saucepan and heat it to melt.

When the margarine is melted, pour in the flour and mix.

Stir the flour constantly and cook it for a few min.

Add the hot milk into the pot with the flour.

Beat the cream with a hand blender to homogenize it.

Continue the cooking stiring constantly.

When the cream starts to boil, remove the saucepan from the heat.

Assembling the stuffed aubergines

Take from the oven the pan with the eggplant.

Fill 3/4 of each eggplant with the stuffing.

Put béchamel sauce and cover the filling.

The sauce should rise slightly above the eggplant

Put the eggplants in the pan again.

Place the pan back in the oven on the first rack from the bottom.

Bake at 180 C degrees for 40 minutes.

When the food is ready is smells nicely and the cream has light beige color.

Remove the pan from the oven and let it cool before serving.