CHEFS! WHAT HAS GONE WRONG WITH YOUR PIES???

First of all, orient your taste buds to the basic five tastes!

Venison and Portobello Pie 
Red Cabbage relish, crumble, scented oil and apple crisps

This was the venison pie I made during my NZ L5 Cookery Diploma, it happened that I was the only student remained without an acting student-supervisor, I thought I wouldn't have a "boss" so I could do what I wanted, then my chef tutor announced that he would be my "supervisor" and he challenged me not to make any "grandma" or "grandpa" pie, after that he left me alone, I thought I could hear his devilish chuckling echoes when he left the kitchen. After I prepared the pie dough,  I went to look for him for the pie molds for everyone in the kitchen, he told me, "Tell them to make a pie without a mold!" I thought I could hear him laughing devilishly, "I love it! I love it!" When the "grandson" pie finally presented to him, he did love my deconstructional pie and even asked me to bring it to show the head chef tutor. The pie crust was filled with portobello mushroom with minced venison and also venison steak. I always remember I baked this pie on the valentine day, I made two roses on the lip, but when I took the lip out of the oven, it slipped off, luckily the lip didn't drop to the floor but one of the roses ran off, and I thought it wanted to run off to Hawaii! 

By Chef Si

   Pies would be the best choice for those who only left five dollars or who only got five dollars budget in their pockets, but obviously, most of the time we would find the reality of the cheaper the pies we paid the poorer the quality the pies were. Most chefs, especially Asian male chefs hardly read, if they read a lot,  they are probably the award-winning chefs, great chefs or celebrity chefs, surely this article is not for them

   From my knowledge, most Asian male chefs would only use vinegar when they cook the sweet and sour sauce. Unfortunately, vinegar or acidic taste was often avoided by them as one of the most basic ingredients applied to balance the five basic tastes in their cooking. Also, amongst some Asian male chefs, only Korean, Thai, Indian and Japanese are nurtured with daily acidic taste since young through their kimji, tom yang, yogurt, and sushi, whereas most other Asian countries' male chefs simply can't tolerance much acidic taste, but Asian female chefs are exempted, they all like something a little sourly unless they have bad teeth. 

   Most pies in New Zealand now are produced by Asian male chefs in their small cafes, and among these Asian male pie chefs, Cambodian male pie chefs at the moment are actually reigning the New Zealand pies scene. 

   Let me not to mention the expensive pies that used the finest ingredients with European-style flavorful butter that already included subtle umami and acidic tastes in the crust during production, and the flavorful Wagyu beef or NZ purely grass-fed Angus beef used for the filling. The pie quality that I mentioned here were mainly technical problems caused by unskilled chefs or chefs without trained under a great chef to produce the both great crust and the fillings with great flavor. 

   I have tried some cheap and inferior pies here in Auckland done by some Asian-run chain cafes, often, their pie crusts were thick, inferior meats were used, and the filling was tasteless and gluey. In certain eateries, the pie crusts were thin and good but the filling was gluey with imbalanced tastes. 

   Most Asian chefs learned how to make their pies from industry experience, as there is no chef school would concentrate teaching only how to make pies for the whole semester. Usually, if these Asian chefs are artistic enough, they could produce a good crust, I noticed all of them did watch out for the color of the filling sauce, unfortunately, their taste buds have not developed to detect the subtle acidic and umami tastes required to bring out the balanced flavor of a good pie. 

   The standard beef pie required wine vinegar and Dijon mustard for acidic taste and Worcestershire sauce for umami taste, Asian chefs would neglect using them if they don't understand the points of why they have to use these sourly and pungent western ingredients, but to apply these ingredients, they have to orient their taste buds to apply them subtly and confidently. Also, I notice the consistency of sauce in the pie was too gluey as well. When the pie was baked, the sauce that a chef prepared was perfect in his eyes could turn slightly gluey after the pie was baked. Honestly, I wondered if I was eating the Chinese version of wheat flour shepherd pie! (Just like my Chinese classmate who preferred gnocchi with overwhelming wheat flour taste). I also noticed that there was no western herb applied on their pies filling, except the salt and pepper, these two ingredients are always written in the recipe as TT (to taste)! Lastly, application of western herbs required good tastebuds. In western cooking, a good chef is the one who can make great sauces, it denotes such chef knows how to play magic with the five tastes or even something more than that. For such a good chef, the application of ingredients to a sauce is instinctively concocted through his knowledge, experience, eyes, nose and taste buds.

   Creating a barrier between the pie crust and wet filling is also another secret tip to create good pie as well. In short, an awesomely good pie is not easy to make as well although a foreigner working as a pie chef now can't earn his PR in NZ, however, I think if he can win as the best pie chef in NZ, that's the different story again.