Country Pâté and Cheese Hand Pies

Recipe and photos by Lily Morello

Adorable handheld pies filled with creamy Brie cheese and a flavorful slice of Pâté de Campagne. Topped with an adornment of pink peppercorns, parsley, and dill, these hand pies make for a festive decoration that will awe savory pastry lovers this holiday season.

Ingredients:

1–2 sheets prepared pie crust dough*, thawed
1 package (8 oz) Pâté de Campagne, with aspic removed
8 oz mini brie wheels or Chabichou Du Poitou
2–4 tablespoons all purpose flour, for dusting
1 egg, yolk and white divided
Pink peppercorns, for decoration (optional)
Parsley leaves, for decoration (optional)
Dill, for decoration (optional)

Procedure

Preheat the oven to 450°F and line baking trays with parchment paper. Make sure pie dough has been thawed according to package instructions.

Slice Pâté de Campagne into 12 slices of equal thickness. Trim corners off of some of the larger slices if needed to fit better within the size of your bottom crust cookie cutter. Set aside for your hand pie assembly line.

Trim off the top and bottom rinds of the cheese. Then, slice 12 rounds of similar thickness to the pâté slices. (Note: if using a very soft cheese, place the cheese into the freezer for about 10 minutes before slicing to firm it up and then use a knife dipped in hot water to make slicing easier.) Set aside for your hand pie assembly line.

Beat the egg white to a homogeneous consistency and set aside for your hand pie assembly line.

To assemble a hand pie, roll up pie dough to about 1/16th of an inch in thickness, using flour as needed to prevent sticking. Use a 3.2-inch round cookie cutter to cut a circle for the bottom. Use a 3.8-inch round cookie cutter to cut a circle for the top. Brush the smaller dough circle with egg white to help with sealing, then place 1 slice of Pâté de Campagne in the center, followed by 1 slice of the cheese. Place the larger dough circle on top and use a fork to crimp the edges shut. If desired, use the 3.2-inch round cookie cutter to trim the pie down to a neat circle again. Use a toothpick to poke a few small holes in the top. Place on the parchment-lined tray.

Repeat for the remaining pâté and cheese slices, balling up the dough and re-rolling flat as needed.

Beat the egg yolk into a homogenous mixture and brush a thin layer of egg yolk over all the pies. If desired, decorate with the pink peppercorns, parsley, and dill. Make sure to press the herbs onto the dough with as much contact as possible; this will prevent the herbs from shriveling in the oven.

Place the pies in the freezer for 10 minutes.

Bake the chilled tarts for 20 minutes or until they are shiny and a rich golden brown. Allow to cool slightly before enjoying, or the filling will be piping hot!

Notes from the author:

This recipe is for adorable handheld pies filled with creamy cheese and a flavorful slice of Three Little Pigs Pâté de Campagne—a classically-prepared country pork pâté. An adornment of pink peppercorns, parsley, and dill make for a festive decoration that will awe those who love savory pastries during the holiday season.

If you’ve never had pâté de campagne, or country pâté, before, then it may surprise you that the texture is quite different from the mousse-textured, smooth, and spreadable pâté that you would find in tea sandwiches or banh mi. Instead, it is actually a terrine—a coarse-textured mixture of ground meat, herbs, and spices that is molded together and served sliced. The texture more closely resembles a sausage than a spread.

When I tried Three Little Pigs Pâté de Campagne, it immediately reminded me of the filling that was in little handheld picnic pies I’ve had in England, one of my favorite countries to visit. Picnicking is quite a thing there, with delis and little grocery shops offering menus where you can choose from a multi-course selection of portable bites and they will bundle it together in a little kit to take away and enjoy in some picturesque glen or rose garden (also in abundant supply). One of the items that is sure to be on these picnic menus is meat pies. Unlike pot pies in the U.S., where the filling is practically a thick soup, or a pie in a pub that might contain a good amount of brown gravy, picnic pies are meant to be portable and easy to eat without making a mess. I find the filling of these to be a lot like a terrine, which can be cleanly sliced and still keep its molded shape.

It may not be the best time of year for a picnic (in fact, there’s an atmospheric river pouring down over my house as I write this) but I think that any time of year is right for cute, portable foods, including when you want a handheld snack while you’re curled up by the fireplace or you’re filling your home with the warmth of holiday party guests. The hack of using Three Little Pigs Pâté de Campagne as the meat filling means these are super easy to make, but still contain all the complexity of pork and all those herbs and spices that have been melded together into a savory flavor bomb.

Ingredients for the Country Pâté and Cheese Hand Pies

There are only 3 main ingredients to make these!

Pie dough: Using a store-bought frozen pie dough keeps the recipe to its goal of being easy. But you’re obviously welcome to use your own from-scratch recipe if you prefer.
Country pâté: The 8-ounce package of Three Little Pigs Pâté de Campagne comes in a nice mini log that is perfect for slicing into little disks that can act as the filling for these round mini hand pies. Remove the aspic before slicing.
Cheese: I found a cute mini brie that was similar in size to the log of Pâté de Campagne so it was perfect to use as the other component to the filling of these hand pies. Any similar small round soft cheese will work here to bring a creamy gooey element to the pies. Another great option to use here is the Chabichou Du Poitou. If you are opting for a particularly soft cheese like the Chabichou, pop the cheese into the freezer for about 10 minutes before slicing to firm it up and then use a knife dipped in hot water to make slicing easier.

These additional helper ingredients will make your pies extra lovely and successful:

Flour: You will need a little bit of all purpose flour for dusting your work surface and rolling pin when you are working with the pie dough.
Egg: For this recipe, eggs will serve for two different purposes. Use the egg whites as a glue to help bind the bottom and top pieces of pastry together. Then use the yolk as the egg wash. Using only the yolk as the egg wash for pie crust gives it an exceptional shine and a beautiful warm brown color.
Pink peppercorns: These are going to be the “berries” in the holly berry themed decoration that goes on top of the pies. If you’ve never had pink peppercorns before, note that they are completely different from the more common black peppercorn. They are mild with a slight fruity taste to them. Using whole peppercorns will not overwhelm the bite of pie.
Fresh herbs: You could use a number of flat tender green herbs to decorate the hand pies, so long as they are soft and thin enough to lie flush against the surface of the pastry. I find that parsley leaves work well for the “holly” leaves, while dill looks like a miniature version of a Christmas fir branch.

Special Tools for Making the Recipe

Having the right cookie cutters will make assembling these hand pies extra easy. I have a set of several circular cookie cutters that nest within each other so that I can cut circles to just the sizes I want. I used a 3.2-inch cutter for the bottom crust and a 3.8-inch cutter for the top. You need the top piece to be a little bigger to wrap around the filling ingredients!

If you don’t have a set of nested round cookie cutters, a thin-rimmed small bowl or mug could be used to press through the pie dough. After cutting two circles, use a rolling pin to gently roll one of the circles a bit larger to use as the top crust.

Decorating the Hand Pies for All Seasons

There’s nothing particularly Christmasy about the flavors in these pies. They’ll be great when picnic season comes around, or at any time of year when you want to make an easy but super satisfying handheld snack. Feel free to skip the “holly” decorating step.

If you still feel like decorating, cutting shapes out of the pie dough scraps are a wonderful option to channel some creativity towards. Brush the surface of each hand pie with the beaten egg yolk, affix the dough decorations, and then give the decorations an egg wash before baking.

Regardless of whether you choose to do something fancy or no decoration at all, I just can't get over how cute these are, and how easy they were to make!