Here’s a thing I have now learnt. All those times I ignored the instructions about covering the fill pastry with a damp tea towel while you’re working with it? STUPID. That trick actually works! Who knew?? (… aside from all the recipe writers I’ve been ignoring, of course…)
I’ve decided to work my way through Leanne Kitchen’s Turkey, and these pies seemed like an excellent thing to attempt. The filling is:
lamb mince (minced by me! Although the butcher didn’t have any fillets, so it was just their diced lamb, which was… not awesome)
lentils (which are mentioned at the start of the recipe, as needing to be boiled for 30 minutes to soften, but then never mentioned again so I just presumed that they should be mixed with the lamb)
mint, parsley, garlic, onion, tomato/pepper paste and goat’s cheese (I just used fetta).
The prep is incredibly easy, and since going with the tea towel trick even the construction itself was straight forward, although it did take a while – each of the spirals is three layers of filo, with butter on each (an exercise which has convinced me that I need a new pastry brush, because mine is losing bristles like it’s going bald).
The mint was a delightful and intriguing taste; I think it needed more fetta (the recipe called for 60g, I think I put in more like 100g). I will absolutely be making these again and I imagine that I will be playing around with the ingredients, too. It can’t be hard to come up with a chicken version, or even a vegetarian one (although getting the ingredients small enough might be a pain).
Acts of Kitchen 
