The Life of Pie

The chefs at the COOK Kitchen had quite a journey mastering our new Pies for One. One of them, Alan Martin, gave us the low down…

The chefs at the COOK Kitchen had quite a journey mastering our new Pies for One. One of them, Alan Martin, gave us the low down…

“Making individual pies was a completely new process and it is by far the most complex range of dishes we have ever made. It took weeks of preparation in the new pie room before we could make the first batch of 200 pies (the first batch of any new dish is always 200). Myself and Damien spent a lot of time trying to perfect the way we work with them as well as working out how our pastry reacts with them. There was only so much practice we could have before the 200s were due to be made and this is where we really saw how many different variables were in one batch.

It’s been tricky. The making of one pie consists of up to nine individual processes just in the pie room, on top of our regular processes like preparing ingredients, cooking, chilling, labelling etc. Due to how the pastry reacts to different temperatures, one of the pies has to be made in a single consistent flow from start to finish. This means that planning and timing is key going forward when we begin to scale up, ensuring that we are as efficient as possible as well as ensuring we are achieving the finest quality.

The last week before the cooking really started was very difficult, but I think I speak for everyone involved that, when we saw the final result, it was all worth it and gave us a huge sense of pride! I’d like to thank the guys in the pie room who helped make this happen and also to the pastry team for making all of the pastry for us throughout the week. Finally, congratulations to the development chefs for developing a concept range with some outstanding flavours that we can now work with and produce for COOK customers.”

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