Spicy Meat Pie

Prepare filling ingredients. Boil meat. Peel onions.

Dice onions with a food processor or by hand. Fry onion until transparent.

Saute mushrooms on high heat in a little oil on all sides. Cut large mushrooms into halves or quarters.

Cut the boiled meat into slices and place them in the mixer bowl. Optionally add a couple of tablespoons of stock.

Grind the meat.

Pour the shredded meat into a pan along with the fried onions, add the mushrooms, stir and stew all together under a lid on a low heat for 5 minutes. Let the stuffing cool down completely.

While stuffing cools down, knead dough. Strain the brine from marinated tomatoes, warm it a little, add salt, sugar and vegetable oil. Stir and add sifted flour and yeast.

Knead the dough. It will be a little sticky to your hands, but if possible it is better not to add flour. Grease a bowl with oil, put the dough in it and cover it with cling film. Put in a warm place for the dough to rise. It should increase in volume by at least 2 times.

When the dough has risen, place it on a floured surface and knead it. If you have a force majeure of time, as I did this time, you can put the crumpled dough in the refrigerator in a bowl, covered with cling film. Nothing critical will happen to the dough overnight, but you should allow the dough to stand for a while, about 1-2 hours, at room temperature before making the pie any further.

Divide the dough into 2 parts, about 1/3 and 2/3. Roll out the larger portion to the size of your mold, plus a rim. I have a square cake tin 24×24cm. You can bake this cake in a bigger round or rectangular tin, it'll just be a little bit lower.

Line the bottom of the molds with parchment. Grease the sides of the cake pan with oil or butter. Gently move the dough, conveniently using a rolling pin, into the mold. Spread the filling on the pastry and smooth it out. Fold edges of dough to center, pinching a little in corners of pie. Then lay the remaining dough on top. I cut the dough into strips and arranged the resulting strips in a circle from the edges to the center. From the remaining strips I laid out a bow. Cover the form with a towel and let the cake rise for 20-30 minutes. Then grease the top of the pie with warm water and sprinkle with sesame seeds, if desired.

Bake the cake in a preheated 170-180°C oven for about 1 hour. Cover the top of the pie with foil if it gets very brown. In 45-50 minutes depending on your oven and the diameter of the mold you can check the pie for readiness with a wooden stick or cooking needle. In my oven the pie was ready in exactly 1 hour. Take the finished pie out of the oven, release it from the mold, and place it on the rack to cool. Cover the warm pie with a towel until it cools completely.

Serve the pie with any beverage, broth or first course, as you wish. The pie also tastes great with pickled tomatoes, on the brine from which it is made.