Aussie Pie Floater

With Australia day fast approaching, I had to share this Aussie icon. The pie floater is a meat pie submerged in thick pea soup, the pies are traditionally turned upside down sitting or sometimes submerged in the pea soup.

The first time I had ever heard of this was while watching an episode of Billy Connolly's Australian tour. He was doing a show in Adelaide and indulged in one of these south Aussie icons.

We tried a similar thing called a tiger pie from Harry's Cafe de Wheels on the Sydney harbour, the Tiger is a meat pie served with scoop of mash a scoop of mushy peas and a scoop of gravy, it was really delicious. 

A pie floater put simply is a meat pie on top of or covered in green pea soup with a choice of sauce squirted on top, the usual being ketchup, brown sauce, mint sauce, gravy or bbq sauce, some people also enjoy vinegar over their floater, I suppose the options can be endless, whatever 'floats' your pie!!.

I searched a few various recipes and this one kinda stood out, it uses dried whole blue boiler peas which are soaked overnight giving the soup a thick creamy smooth texture, just be sure to put them in a big enough bowl as they double in size. If you can't get your hands on blue boilers then Marrowfat peas work just as well. Something to remember, don't add salt to the peas, otherwise the won't soften.

Ingredients

500 g blue boiler peas

5 cups chicken stock

3/4 of a tbsp bicarbonate of soda

4 meat pies

Method

1. The day before cooking rinse dried peas, swishing around with your hand. Place peas in a large container, cover with cold water. Place container in a cool place overnight.

2.  Next day, drain and rinse peas well again until the water runs clear. Place in a large heavy bottomed pan.

3.  Add chicken stock and bicarb soda and bring to the boil, stirring to make sure they don't stick. Reduce to a simmer, stirring occasionally and cook until peas have softened and the soup is nice and thick (around 40-50 minutes). Add more liquid if needed.

4. Meanwhile cook pies according to manufacturers instructions. Once soup is ready, spoon into bowls and top with cooked pie. Now is the time to add any favourite toppings you may have and tuck in!!

Why not add a dollop of mash on top of the pie!

Enjoy