Can’t find mince pies this year or the pastry to make them with at Jasons. They do have mincemeat in a jar though. Previously I’ve bought both there, and vegetarian lard from somewhere or other.
Also Christmas crackers don’t seem to be there this year.
I think an education is in order.
For one thing, there is no such thing as a vegy lard. Lard is the boiled down fat of an animal. As a boy, that was bear lard. Now, I see pork slabs hanging in markets that will probably end up that way, as they should be. If you want so called “vegy lard” you should just find some vegy oil crap sold oneverywhere. Trust me when I tell you that if you are making baked bread items and don’t use real lard, you will see a big difference.
Now, for mince pie. In my part of the world which is the far north of NW U.S., yet avoiding the heathens a few miles to the north (and the presbeterians that might linger near)
Shoot yourself a deer. While you butcher, take care to excise the neck meat. It wouldn’t be eaten anyway. Grind it with a hand grinder into a pot. Add about 50/50 fat stack. Don’t be shy. Find some some pork fat. Add a quart of cherries, apples, pears and some vinegar (about a cup).I also add about a cup of raisins and a cup of dried cranberries. Cover the lot in a ceramic pot. Let it stand for a week in the cermaic pot stirring daily. After it is “done” you are ready to make some pie crusts and add your true filling.
Fuck Mom, this shit has real meat in it! (words wonce heard) Just roll some pie crust dough.
If you cant handle it from there, just give me a call. I’ll help ya on.
Happy hollidays.
[quote=“fruitloop”]…vegetarian lard from somewhere or other.[/quote]Do you mean vegetarian suet? That shouldn’t be necessary for the mincemeat, surely? There are lots of suet-free recipes. And obviously the pastry doesn’t need it.
If it’s for a Christmas pudding or something, I can see why you’d need it. (Some of the best puddings I’ve had have been made with vege suet, by the way.) No idea where to get it here though, sorry.
[quote=“Enigma”]Trust me when I tell you that if you are making baked bread items and don’t use real lard, you will see a big difference.[/quote]I don’t think the OP was talking about “baked bread items”. And which items need lard, anyway? My mum is a very keen baker, and a vegetarian. I really don’t see how something with added animal fat could beat her cakes or pastry.
Ah, what can I say?
I am aware of what real lard is. Sorry I neglected to add the word “alternative” to vegetarian lard. It does exist and works quite well. The question was not one of semantics but a practical one concerning a specific product - which may not have reached Hicksville yet.
The suet is to make pastry, which is best made with lard - which is why an alternative is produced to mimic the real thing. Atora make one which they call Atora light Vegetable Suet, completely avoiding the need for the word “alternative” or “ersatz” in order to make their meaning clear to heathen vegetarians or rednecks with a hang up about people who don’t eat meat.
As for mincemeat, it once always had meat in it. But for the past century or so it has generally referred to dried fruit, spirits and spices. Terms change, and we know what it means. Unless you choose to play stupid. Or perhaps not even play.
Incidentally, there are some fine Jewish and Arab bread and pastry items out there, and I’m sure they’re not using pig fat.
[quote=“fruitloop”]The suet is to make pastry, which is best made with lard…[/quote]You reckon? I’ve always done OK with butter pastry. But if doing it with vege suet is better in some way, I might try it some time. (Not animal lard though–I’m not a vegetarian but I just can’t stomach the thought of deliberately putting a load of congealed animal fat into an otherwise perfectly appetizing dish.)
[quote=“fruitloop”]As for mincemeat, it once always had meat in it. But for the past century or so it has generally referred to dried fruit, spirits and spices. Terms change, and we know what it means.[/quote]Well, you do know that non-vegetarian mincemeat does have suet in, don’t you?
[Edit: Oh, right, I see that you were responding to the bit about making a venison pie that Enigma added to his post.]
I haven’t eaten meat for most of my life, but I concede that pastry with pig lard and butter is the bollocks. Sure, you can do without, but I’d happily slaughter a piggy for one of my nan’s mince pies. You could probably make pastry with motor oil if you felt the urge, but it would be less pleasurable. I never saw the point in all the substitutions with some vegetarians; wannabe meateaters. Childhood veggies tend to eat differently from the ‘ethical choice’ veggies, I always found.
Websters: Suet- " the hard fat deposited around the kidneys and loins of cattle and sheep:used in cooking and as a source of tallow (candle making)
Now I’ve butchered many a cow and many sheep and I have yet to see a carrot while doing so. So can some of you vegy fanatics tell me how the hell one finds suet in corn? potatoes? cucumber? WTF. It means FAT! How can you get lard from a carrot. Maybe the poster is correct, I am just not edicated nuff.
I’m prepared to be proved wrong, but I just don’t see how any pastry made with lard could possibly be any better than my mum’s pastry. I’ve had many a mince pie from various other sources, and I’m invariably disappointed. The pastry is too crumbly and too cloyingly rich, fighting with the mincemeat inside.
The interesting thing is that Enigma’s is the language that is sounding fanatical! I assume he/she is just having a laugh and doesn’t really think anyone who doesn’t eat meat is a fanatic. Just in case the comment was serious, oil can be found in olives, corn, palm, sunflowers, sesame etc. The list goes on. A vegetable suet is presumably a processed form of one of the above. Just as lard is a processed form of what you rip off the side of an animal.
It’s such fun to rise to the bait!
“Robertson’s classic mincemeat” as bought at Jason’s uses vegetable fat.
Incidentally (?), I take it no one has seen mince pies this year. Jason’s had Christmas pudding as well last year but I didn’t see that either. I think they’ve had Christmas cake in the past too.
[quote=“joesax”][quote=“fruitloop”]…vegetarian lard from somewhere or other.[/quote]Do you mean vegetarian suet? That shouldn’t be necessary for the mincemeat, surely? There are lots of suet-free recipes. And obviously the pastry doesn’t need it.
If it’s for a Christmas pudding or something, I can see why you’d need it. (Some of the best puddings I’ve had have been made with vege suet, by the way.) No idea where to get it here though, sorry.[/quote]Actually, I remembered that there are suet-free pud recipes too. I made something very like this a few years ago, and it was good:
[quote]Christmas Pud (Suet Free!!)
230g,8oz, 4 loosely packed cups fresh wholmeal breadcrumbs
230g, 8oz, 2 cups each of roughly chopped muscatel raisins, sultanas, dried apricots.
60g, 2oz, 2 3/4 cup chopped almonds
60g, 20z, 1/2 cup ground or flaked almonds
one grated apple
1 tblspn grated orange zest
1 tspn ground cinnamon
1 tspn ground mace
1/2 tspn ground cardamon
1/2 tspn of ground cloves
1/2 tspn ground allspice
2tbspns orange marmalade or candied orange peel
juice of one orange
4 medium free range eggs
6 tblespoons or one miniature bottle of brandy
140mls, 5fl ozs one scant cup fortified muscat wine, port, marsala or rich oloroso sherry.
Mix all dried ingredients in a bowl
Mix in marmalade, orange juice, eggs, brandy and wine in another bowl, and beat until frothy. Add liquid to dry ingredients, mix, covr, let stand overnight, add to buttered pudding basin right up to top (no flour so won’t expand much) boil for 5 hours. Reheat for two hours.[/quote]I had to substitute some of the ingredients, though, as I couldn’t find everything I needed in Taichung.
How anyone can eat these rank putrid things are beyond me. When I lived in the UK I tried a small piece in a supermarket once and I almost puked on the floor in the shop… 
And btw, suet is the fat from the scrotum and kidneys of cows… :lick:
Christmas pudding is almost as rank, I mean, there’s nothing tasty about it, it’s just this hard lump of dried fruits soaked in booze…
I’d rather drink the booze and eat the fruit as it is, but I guess I’m weird so…
[quote=“fruitloop”]Can’t find mince pies this year or the pastry to make them with at Jasons. They do have mincemeat in a jar though. Previously I’ve bought both there, and vegetarian lard from somewhere or other.
Also Christmas crackers don’t seem to be there this year.[/quote]
Jason’s sells a brand of mincemeat called Duerr’s that goes for NT$100 per jar, and the ingredients are completely vegetarian.
Here’s a scan of the jar’s label:
img259.imagevenue.com/img.php?im … 2_34lo.jpg
If you’ve got the gumption to make your own crust, look up shortcrust recipes. If you’re lazy, like me, then check some of the baking shops for frozen crust in tin foil cups. Jason’s also used to sell frozen sheets of crust (the size of old vinyl albums) but not anymore.
View/Copy/Download/Print this map image:
img257.imagevenue.com/img.php?im … 22_5lo.jpg
See the big ugly “X” in the centre-left of the map? There is a “D.I.Y.” bakeshop on/at/near that corner, west of the bridge closest to Costco.
You haaaaaate everything about the UK. We get it. Every time the UK is mentioned, however tangentially, you bring up your deep dark traumas about unpleasant pastries, poor transport links, etc. Now you have found a little bit of Xanadu in Taiwan, maybe you could quit the whineyboy expat thing?
Pie Boy informs me that he makes his pastry from a vegetable shortening from CostCo. If it’s good enough for him… Anyone know how much it costs to join?
Checked out Sogo and Breeze this afternoon but neither had ready to roll pastry. Sogo had instant dry pie cases but it didn’t look like pastry to me and wouldn’t have had the pie lid even if I’d been that desperate.
Looks like I’ll be making pastry myself and using butter.
Next on the checklist is Ginger Wine and the ingredients for mulled wine.
Cows don’t have scrotums. And for someone who posts so much in the food forum, you sure do seem to suffer from a remarkably narrow palate. You sound almost as picky as my 7-year-old niece! 
You can use Crisco for vegetable shortening. However, it doesn’t make very tasty pastry IMO.
Costco is about $1200/year.
[quote=“sandman”]
Cows don’t have scrotums. And for someone who posts so much in the food forum, you sure do seem to suffer from a remarkably narrow palate. You sound almost as picky as my 7-year-old niece! 
[/quote]
Ok, fine, whatever the males cows are called then 
And no, I’m not that picky, I just have a very selective palate… or something.
And Buttercup, I’m sorry I didn’t like your country and I’ll try to whine a bit less about, ok? 
[quote=“TheLostSwede”][quote=“sandman”]
Cows don’t have scrotums. And for someone who posts so much in the food forum, you sure do seem to suffer from a remarkably narrow palate. You sound almost as picky as my 7-year-old niece! [/quote]
Ok, fine, whatever the males cows are called then
And no, I’m not that picky, I just have a very selective palate… or something.
And Buttercup, I’m sorry I didn’t like your country and I’ll try to whine a bit less about, ok? [/quote]
What is the national dish of Sweden anyways? Aquavit and herring? Deer fitta?
Sorry, Lost Swede. Just don’t diss a pie in front of a northerner, m’kay? Them’s fighting words where I come from…
Cows don’t have scrotums. And for someone who posts so much in the food forum, you sure do seem to suffer from a remarkably narrow palate. You sound almost as picky as my 7-year-old niece! [/quote]
To be fair, a shop-bought mince pie or Christmas pud is quite a long way from the real thing. Even Marks and Sparks ones are too sweet. One year in Leeds me and my Spanish and Latin American housemates held a party. I cooked a bunch of puds. People were wary at first because some of them had tried shop puds before and hated them. But my pud was very popular. At least, everyone appared to be digging in with gusto, and some even asked for more. And I didn’t hear any retching sounds from the back yard afterwards.
There’s nothing special about my cooking skills. But if you use a sensible recipe, you get a very edible pud. The same goes for mince pies.
