How do I use a pie bird?

jap200

I couldn't resist a cute Mason Cash aubergine coloured pie bird in Sainsburys reduced to £1.04 (from £3.50), but I don't know how to use it.

Does anyone have any recipes and/or instructions? I particularly want to know if it is best to have a crust on the bottom of the pie or not.

By the way - this is the pie bird. It is showing as £3.50 on the Sainsburys Home and Garden website, but was 70% off in store.

[Deleted User]

Morning JAP200- just make any pie filling you like and put in straight into the pie dish (no pastry on the bottom), then stand the bird in the centre of the dish, beak up. Make your pastry and cut a few strips to go around the edge of the dish, and dampen the top of strip with a little water. Roll out the rest as normal and cut an X in the middle of it. Put the pastry over the dish so that the bird beak and head comes through the X. Press the edges so that they stick to the pastry strip and trim of the ragged bits round the edge. Then bake it as you normally would. Hope that helps, Cheers Lyn.

krlyr

1. Put on shelf as an ornament
2. Buy ready-made pie
3. Impress guests by pretending you made the pie yourself
:rotfl:

My mum makes a mean steak pie, which she taught me, and we both put pastry on the bottom of the pie. Whether it's better or not is personal taste I guess - I quite like having a good ratio of pastry to meat, and I like having a mix of the soggy texture of the bottom part of pastry and the crispness of the top part.

http://makelifedelicious.com/2008/02/what-is-a-pie-bird/ may be of some help. Includes an apple pie recipe to give your pie bird a test!

jap200

MrsLurcherwalker wrote: »

Morning JAP200- just make any pie filling you like and put in straight into the pie dish (no pastry on the bottom), then stand the bird in the centre of the dish, beak up. Make your pastry and cut a few strips to go around the edge of the dish, and dampen the top of strip with a little water. Roll out the rest as normal and cut an X in the middle of it. Put the pastry over the dish so that the bird beak and head comes through the X. Press the edges so that they stick to the pastry strip and trim of the ragged bits round the edge. Then bake it as you normally would. Hope that helps, Cheers Lyn.

OOOh super. It sounds much easier than I thought. I have a victoria plum tree heaving with fruit so I think I will give a plum pie a go. I'm guessing that a normal home-made short crust pastry will do OK - perhaps with a little caster suger sprinked on top.

Possession

If you are making a 2 crust pie, put the pie bird onto the bottom crust before you put the filling in. This should ensure that both the filling won't overspill and the bottom crust won't be soggy.

[Deleted User]

Yes JAP ordinary shortcrust is fine, also puff, flaky etc. Just use whatever you have ingredients to make, Cheers Lyn x.