Jim Fini — A Post-Christmas Kitchen Management Pot Pie

My family spent Christmas in Park City to enjoy the snowy scenery and skiing that we grew up with in New England. If you’re like us, your refrigerator is full of leftovers from the holiday parties with friends and family. This year my wife made a wonderful beef tenderloin for Christmas dinner that also made for some great leftovers. My son was visiting from graduate school at University of Maryland where he is a fitness afficionado who subsists on ground turkey and rice bowls that try to mimic Chipotle. Although I made fun of his limited culinary skills as young man, I admitted that at his age I subsisted on Ramen Noodles in college, which you could buy three packages for one dollar in 1982.

In between Christmas and New Year, it was a wet snowy day, and I decided not to ski and just relax with my family. The Christmas decorations were in full bloom, I was still watering the poinsettias, and I slept till 10 AM. The glorious “dolce far niente” as we say in Italian (the sweet do nothing.) The girls were running errands and my son and I were watching football games and I was pretty excited watching my Syracuse Orange beat Washington State. In between the football, I flipped over to the local Salt Lake City PBS station, which ran a cooking program called the Greek Table with Dianne Kochilas. I found the actual recording on YouTube and here it is.

She was making a Greek three meat pie with Filo dough. I didn’t have all three meats that she started with or the Filo dough, but I did have leftover tenderloin of beef, my son’s ground turkey and rice, and a couple standard Pillsbury round pie crusts. I would’ve preferred a larger square pie crust, but the premise of my approach to cooking, kitchen management, makes it fun to improvise.

Besides an interest in UFOs and aliens, I count watching cooking shows as a guilty pleasure. My earliest memories include watching Julia Child with my mother when I was in kindergarten. It came right after her favorite soap operas. Then in the early 70s, I graduated to the Galloping Gourmet with Graham Kerr, which showed me that it was OK for men to cook.

So, I’m watching this Greek Table show just loving how she describes the preparation of the dish that is very traditional in the Greek islands. Especially Cephalonia, where Dianne’s family hails from. It’s a familiar Mediterranean cuisine with lots of olive oil, fresh vegetables and garlic. Not very different than the cuisine of Cesira Fini, my Italian grandmother.

A Little History

The earliest meat pies date back to ancient civilizations like Egypt, where a primitive version used thick layers of oats or barley paste as a crust to encase meat fillings. These "pies" were functional, protecting food from spoilage in the pre-refrigeration era. The Greeks introduced a pastry-like dough made from flour and water, which was later adopted and refined by the Romans. Roman cooks created “Placenta,” a layered pastry with meat or fish fillings, often used in ceremonial contexts. In medieval Europe, pie crusts (called "coffins") were thick, inedible containers designed to preserve food for long periods and serving as portable meals for workers or soldiers.

By the 14th century, European bakers began using butter or lard to create a flakier, more enjoyable crust. This advancement led to pies becoming a staple of festive and everyday meals. During the 16th and 17th centuries, meat pies gained popularity in England, often filled with a mixture of beef, pork, lamb, or game meats, spiced with nutmeg, cloves, and pepper. The Cornish pasty—a handheld pie filled with meat and vegetables—emerged as a meal for miners. European colonizers introduced meat pies to the Americas, Africa, and Asia. Each region adapted the concept to local tastes, ingredients, and culinary traditions.

Dianne’s dish contains chopped beef, pork, and lamb. I love that combination, but unfortunately, that was not in the refrigerator, and I wasn’t interested in getting in my car to go to the store. So, I got to work with what I had: ground turkey, beef tenderloin, leftover potatoes lyonnaise, broccoli, cooked rice and ground turkey.

Here’s what I pulled out of the cupboards and the refrigerator for my meat pie:

· Large rectangular Pyrex baking dish

· Large deep dish fry pan

· 3 medium size chopped yellow onions

· 2 tablespoons of chopped garlic. As I said in my previous Bolognese recipe, fresh chopped garlic is always best, but in a pinch, you can use the jar garlic.

· 1 lb. ground turkey

· 2 cups of chopped beef tenderloin. If you’re lucky enough to have some leftover lamb or pork, use that.

· 1 cup frozen peas

· 1 cup fresh chopped parsley.

· We had a bowl of pre-cooked jasmine rice in the fridge, so I used 3 cups.

· Tony Chachere’s, pronounced in our household as “Tony Chach”, is a salt substitute in our house. It’s been that way for years since my sister Kiki turned us onto it. It’s a New Orleans tradition that includes salt, cayenne pepper, garlic, and another spices. A great addition to almost any dish.

· 1/2 cup of extra virgin olive oil

· 1 cup Romano cheese. Use any cheese you want except American or Cheez Wiz. They aren’t real food no matter what people tell you.

· 3 cups of leftover Potatoes Lyonnaise from our December 22 party with Park City friends

· 2 cups of leftover cooked broccoli.

· 3 eggs

· 2 tablespoons chili powder

· 2 large rectangular refrigerated pie crusts. If you don’t have that then use three round ones and improvise for the crust like I did.

Here’s my process:

1. Remove refrigerated pie crusts so that they can get to room temperature when you need them.

2. Turn on oven to bake at 350

3. Chop onions and garlic.

4. Add garlic, onions and olive oil to a deep fry pan on medium high heat. Cover and Stir frequently with a wood spoon until onions start to become translucent.

5. Add the ground turkey stir breaking it into small chunks. Shake about 1 tsp of Tony Chach and stir. Cover for 3 minutes.

6. Add the rice, Potatoes Lyonnaise, broccoli. Shake some more Chach, stir and cover.

7. Stir in 3 whole eggs to bind the mixture. Cover for 4 minutes.

8. Remove fry pan from heat and let sit uncovered while you prep your baking dish

Here’s what things look like at this stage:

Next, get started with your pie crust.

1. Unroll your pie crust.

2. Add 1 tsp of olive oil to the Pyrex baking dish and spread around with your fingers. Hey special attention to spreading olive oil on the sides of the baking dish so the crust doesn’t stick.

3. Spread the pie crust dough at the bottom of baking dish ensuring that it runs up the sides and slightly over the rim. This makes a nice hearty crust that gives the pie that nice crunch.

4. After the meat and veggie mixture has cooled for 10 minutes, ladle the meat mixture into the baking dish spreading it evenly throughout.

5. Sprinkle the cheese, chopped parsley and chili powder evenly across top of pie the filling.

6. Cover the top of the filling with dough making sure to pinch the top layer into the bottom layer that is flowing over the edges to seal the crust.

7. Spread 1 teaspoon of olive oil over the top of the crust to give it that gold brown color then shake a little Tony Chach over the top for more color and flavor.

8. Put the baking dish into the preheated 350° oven and cook for one hour.

9. Remove from the oven and let sit for 30 minutes.

This meat pie is literally a complete hearty entrée with meat, vegetables and pastry proxy for bread. I serve it with a simple salad and a glass of Kim Crawford Sauvignon Blanc. Whatever is left will last 5-7 days in the refrigerator and heats up easily in the microwave. Enjoy!