Renaissance Meat Pies

I ended up accidentally skipping over this one in my initial writings, but I do think it's worth mentioning. This was the first recipe I tried out of my Shakespeare's Kitchen cookbook.

Individual Meat Pies with Cointreau Marmalade
1 lb. ground beef
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. black pepper
1/2 tsp. ground nutmeg
1 tsp. ground mace
6 pitted prunes/dried plums, minced
1/2 c. dried currants (original recipe called for "1 c. currants", but wasn't clear on fresh or dried)
1/2 c. freshly squeezed orange juice (~1 orange worth)
pie pastry
1/2 c. Cointreau
1 c. thick-cut orange marmalade

1. Combine beef, salt, pepper, nutmeg, mace, prunes, currants, and orange juice in a non-reactive bowl. Chill overnight.
2. Roll out dough (~1/16" thick). Dough for sufficient for one double-crust pie should be enough to make all your tarts.
3. Cut dough into tart-sized rounds. Three-inch rounds are recommended, but smaller or larger could also be used although this will change the ratio of crust to filling.
4. Fill the tart shells with the meat mixture and bake at 450F for 15 minutes. (I made my tarts in my Babycakes cupcake maker, so they only took about 8 minutes.)
5. Bring Cointreau to a boil and add marmalade. Cook, stirring, until well-combined and heated through.
6. Top meat pies with marmalade glaze.

I was surprised by the amount of fruit that was called for in these meat pies. The filling actually reminds me quite a lot of my grandmother's traditional mincemeat recipe. I wouldn't be at all surprised to find out that this was an early precursor or variant of mincemeat.

The book includes a recipe for "Renaissance Dough", but I simply bought ready-made dough for this since I wasn't sure what I'd have time for. I'm sure they would've been lovely with home-made dough, but they still turned out lovely as it was.

I only ended up using about half the glaze. That said, any leftovers can always be poured back into the jar and saved for spreading on toast or any other applications where you might enjoy marmalade. But, if you don't want to deal with excess marmalade/glaze, I would recommend only making a half portion for the amount of meat.

I wasn't sure whether to use a cup or half a cup of currants since the recipe didn't specify whether fresh or dried were expected. Since it didn't specify, I assumed that amount was for fresh. Since I only had dried available, I put in half the amount figuring they'd plump up a bit from sitting in the orange juice with the beef overnight. Next time, I might try soaking them a bit first to give them a bit more volume and a bit of a softer mouth feel. I'd also like to experiment with making these tarts with fresh currants if I can find some in season next year. I think it'd be interesting to see how the fresh berries affect the flavour and texture of the filling.

Overall, I think these little tarts came out quite well and they seemed to be enjoyed at Thanksgiving. If you're not used to sweet meat dishes, this might seem a bit strange. However, I think anyone who enjoys old-fashioned mincemeat -- the kind with actual beef, rather than modern "mock mincemeat" that seems to be composed predominantly of raisins -- will probably find these tarts quite appealing.

I certainly plan on making another batch or two of these tasty little tarts to go with Christmas dinner! Happy Holidays! :)