Corned Beef and Potato Pie

My mum bought round a load of corned beef. No idea why, I despise the stuff in everything apart from Greggs corned beef pasties. I was at home looking after William, so while he had his nap I decided to make a pie with it, rather than chuck it out!

I made a pretty basic shortcrust, 300gm flour, 100 butter, 75 lard and an egg. I also made some sort of filling with potatoes, onion leek and carrot, and of course the beef. No idea if it was right or wrong but just went with what looked right...

When I watch cookery programmes their pastry is always rolled out in perfect shapes, I have no idea how they do this. mine resembles a particularly rocky and craggy coastline, meaning I spend 20 minutes patching up holes and adding to the sides to get an even coverage. anyway after a lot of messing about I ended up with this...

...Which I was quite happy with. The butterflies, I had a bit of pastry left over, and my wife has a never used butterfly cutter, so I thought I'd stick a couple on.  I doubt you'll be seeing them at Greggs anytime soon.



So, bit of egg wash, in the oven for 40 minutes (190C by the way) and this came out...

I'm happy with the colour, not so happy with the shrinking or the big hole (a legacy of my dubious rolling skills) and its sagged, due to not enough filling. But overall I don't think it's a bad first attempt.

It went down well at tea too, I'll probably reduce the lard for the next time, the only reason i used it was I was short on butter...