Dingle Pies

In honor of the upcoming St. Patrick's Day and my love affair with Ireland, I decided to attempt these Dingle pies, named after the town of Dingle on the west coast of Ireland. There are several recipes out there but this is the one that I followed.

Having never made pastry dough before, I was a bit hesitant and made myself watch a couple of clips on Youtube to see how people actually prepare the pastry dough, since the preparation is where one makes or breaks the pastry dough... Believe me, I would have opted for pre-made pastry dough had it existed (I've only seen graham cracker pie crust, phyllo dough, and puff pastry).

So anyway I cut in the butter/oil blend with some knives and probably added too much ice water (but it still looked so dry and crumbly!). Also, I should have just used the egg yolk instead of the entire egg for the wash. But it came out fine in my opinion... It could definitely be improved as far as using all butter and adding less water, now that I know the crumbliness gets taken care of when rolling the dough out. Either that, or I might try another recipe where the flour to fat ratio is much less than this one. Having more fat in the dough might make it easier to work with.

Oh and about the filling, I was paranoid and basically cooked the filling before stuffing the pies. Supposedly, for things like Cornish pasties, one has to refrain from pre-cooking the filling in order for the meat pie to be an official pasty. But I was not concerned with that, and plus these are Dingle pies, not Cornish pasties! Oh and I ended up substituting sweet potato instead of regular potato for the filling and it came out deliciously!

So anyway I might make this again. I brought over my whole wheat pastry flour, and I invested in a rolling pin and pastry brush. So the Dingle pie will be rearing its head in my kitchen one of these days...