The backstory

Many of these recipes have a backstory. In this one, a little cafe opened up in the nearby business district. It has the modern decor that I interpret as "healthy eats", but as is my standard practice, before I went in, I checked the nutritional info on their Web site.

Glad I did. They specialize in meat pies, and each one is a "heart grenade", with a full week's supply of essential sodium, cholesterol, and trans- and saturated-fat. One of them would shave six months off my lifespan; I considered  reporting them to the EPA as a toxic-substance.

Still, I imagined the taste of a meat pie melting in my mouth....ummmm, meat pies...so I started thinking about how to make my own. The key is that miracle food stock, Heart Healthy Bisquik. (No, I'm not shilling, I'm a genuinely-happy customer.)

The filling

I prepare the filling in two parts: The chopped meat, and the veggies.

Veggie filling: Saute a whole onion; olive oil is healthy, but if you're fanatic, try canola oil. According to the nutrition label, canola oil is an imaginary substance with zeroes in every cell; knock yourself out.

Today I added a half red pepper, chopped finely. Next time I think I'll try mushrooms. Shallots might be good too. The beauty of this kind of recipe is that you can make endless variations depending on what's handy. I grabbed spices and tossed 'em in, I think it was garlic and composite Italian seasoning. You'll have limited space in the meat pie, so adjust quantities to end up with a couple of cups' worth of the vegetable part, separate from the chopped chicken. (Not that it's critical; I zapped the excess ingredients in the microwave and munched on them while I waited for the pies to cook. Nothing has to go to waste.)

This is a meat pie, and lean white chicken breast is the least toxic meat. Depending on how many optional ingredients you want, chop up one or two, and keep separate from the veggies (you don't saute the chicken).

The shell

Bisquik is amazing stuff; it's the root ingredient from which you can make almost any bread-like food. The most versatile recipe, I've found, is the simplest: Bisquits. 1.5 cups Heart-Healthy Bisquik mix, .5 cups 1% skim milk (the ratio is 3:1, so you can scale it for any amount you want). Here too, I experiment with seasonings. Today it was Mrs Dash's non-salt seasoning, plus a bit more of that Italian composite (which shows up as a speckling of green oregano in the dough, for a nice visual effect).

Knead the dough until you're bored with it. Then form/roll it out into a cylindrical log, which you can then judge by eye where to cut to divide it into fourths. Did I mention that this recipe makes four meat pies? Sorry...

Choose your target shape. First time I did it, I rolled the dough into rough squares, and ended up with a burrito-wrap shape. Today I rolled each fourth into a ball and flattened it into a circle, to get, at the end, the traditional half-circle meat pie. Use a rolling pin and roll it as thin as you can; this is crucial, because moisture in the filling can make it hard to cook, and you need a thin crust to get a crispy crust. (Bisquik expands; the shell should be about 1/4 inch thick when it's cooked.)

Final assembly

With your dough wrapper spread out, lay down some chopped chicken over half the wrapper, then spoon the vegetable filling over it. A little ground Parmesan cheese is a nice touch, though it violates the low-sodium rule a tad bit; dispense with it to be a purist.

I still haven't mastered this next bit, and the results were a little ragged. Fold the other half over the filling, trying to make the edges match evenly (they won't, you can't roll dough into a perfect circle), and pinch the edges together to try to make a seal, as best you can.

Baking

I use a little convection toaster oven, so I fit two of these things on to each of two shelves. First pass I laid down aluminum foil on the racks to support the pies. Bake for about ten minutes at 450 degrees, or until the visible surface is light brown. Then remove the racks, strip off the aluminum foil, and bake another 8-10 minutes (or until brown and crispy). After the first pass the pie will be able to support its own weight, and directly on the rack browns the part that was shielded by the foil.

I never know if my little experiments will work out, but this one did. One of my best so far, if I do say so. Good with a dab of yellow mustard on the plate for dipping; the taste combination is like a pretzel with a meat filling. Mmmmmmmmmm....

Enjoy...