Ground beef pies: a classic comfort food!

These little bites with ground beef are extremely delicious and exactly what you need when you invite people over and want to serve them a nice treat! You can keep them in the refrigeration, take them out and bake them whenever you feel hungry and are too bored to spend too much time in the kitchen!

Ingredients for the filling: ½ kg ground beef, 1 onion, nutmeg, 2 cinnamon sticks (which you remove once the ground beef is ready), 10 berries of whole allspice (also to be removed once the ground beef is ready), salt, pepper, ½ small spoon tomato paste, 2 melted tomatoes, olive oil, 1 glass of white wine, water

Ingredients for the dough: ½ kg all purpose flour, 50ml of olive oil, 1 small spoon of baking powder, 1tbsb of vinegar, warm water (can’t define the quantity; you should put as much needed to make a smooth dough which can be kneaded), 1 pinch of salt

Firstly I make my pastry by mixing all my ingredients together and by adding warm water slowly. I let my pastry rest for half an hour. I divide it in two parts. On a floured surface, I roll out each piece of dough with a rolling pin to create a phyllo. I cut my pastry in rectangular pieces.

I now prepare my filling. I put some olive oil in a frying pan and I sauté my chopped onion. I then put my ground beef to slowly cook. I add the tomato paste and the melted tomatoes, the nutmeg, the cinnamon sticks, the allspice, salt, pepper and the white wine. I let it simmer for about an hour until it is cooked. I add hot water if needed. Once I withdraw the filling from fire I should be careful that it doesn’t have liquids; then I start preparing my meat pies.

Usually, I make triangles with my stuffing and I also add some cheese, depending on what I have handy in my fridge. This time I didn’t add cheese and they were nevertheless delicious!

I bake in the oven for 20’ in 200C. I serve with a light sauce made of yogurt.