Here it is, the end of July already, which means birthday month is officially coming to an end. I absolutely love birthday month and this year was even better with Emily and I successfully pulling off a joint birthday backpacking celebration.
This time we learned from our mistakes and planned a casual overnight backpacking trip on Mount Pinos near our Dirty Gourmet outpost in Pine Mountain Club.
I took the lead for lunch on the trail with a very loose idea of a “packet meal” – an all-in-one savory hand-held wrapped item filled with deliciousness. With no real plan or recipe in hand, the experiment yielded a pie crust wrapped pocket filled with a mixture of sweet potatoes, leeks, jalapenos, sausage and goat cheese.
Being the baker that I am not, I struggled with the pie dough rolling and folding. The Sweet Potato and Sausage Savory Pie Bombs started out blobby but eventually found their shape, which is a little reminiscent of Asian dumplings or baos.
The great thing about this kind of snack is that you can use pretty much anything you like for the filling; just make sure the consistency is not too liquid. For the shell, I used store-bought frozen piecrust that you can roll out flat (no pie tin). You can also use puff pastry for the shell as Emily did with her Cheesy Sausage Grits Cakes.
Even though birthday month will be over, the fun will continue! The next big challenge for me is the 8000 meter challenge – Mount Baldy, San Gorgonio and San Jacinto all in one day. Most likely, I will have one of these pie bombs stashed in my pocket.
Sweet Potato and Sausage Savory Pie Bomb
Yield
12 pie bombsPrep Time / Cook Time
/Activity Guide
Backpacking, Day Trip, PicnicIngredients
- 3 medium sweet potatoes, peeled, boiled and drained
- 1 leek, trimmed and finely chopped
- 2 jalapeños, finely chopped
- 3 sausages, chopped
- 12 teaspoons of goat cheese, at room temperature
- 1/2 tablespoon black pepper
- 1/2 tablespoon of salt, or to taste
- Dash of thyme
- Dash of cumin
- Spray oil
- 2 frozen pie crusts (no pie tin)
- Flour
Tools
- Cutting board
- Foil
- Knife
- Large pot
- Measuring spoons
- Rolling pin
- Skillet
- Strainer
- Vegetable peeler
- Muffin tin
- Wood spoon
- Potato masher
Method
Filling:
1. While potatoes are boiling, heat up oil in a skillet and add leeks and jalapeños at medium-high heat. Stir occasionally until leeks and jalapeños are soft.
2. Add sausage to skillet and brown. I used sausages that were already cooked so this was just to get a sear on them and blend in flavors.
3. Once potatoes are ready, drain and put back in the pot. Add salt, pepper, thyme and cumin and mash.
4. Add leek and sausage mixture and mix well. Add salt and pepper to taste.
Assembly:
1. Preheat oven to 350˚F and spray your muffin tin generously with spray oil.
2. Make sure your pie crust is almost at room temperature – slightly chilled will make it easier to work with. Lightly flour a clean surface and roll out the dough.
3. Using a knife, roughly cut out a 6″- 7″ circle. Place it into one of the muffin tin openings making sure not to poke holes in the dough as you lightly press it down into the shape. You should have enough extra dough flapping over the edge of the opening so that it reaches the middle point of the pocket pie when folded.
4. Fill the dough with 3 tablespoons of filling. It should go the top edge of the muffin tin. Make a hole in the middle of the filling and add 1 teaspoon of goat cheese.
5. Now for the folding. Feel free to experiment with your own technique but here’s where I landed after a few trail and errors. Gently fold the dough over so one point meets the center of the filling. Don’t pull the dough as it probably is getting soft and will likely tear if you do. Create a pleat by pinching the dough to the left of the area that is already touching the dough. Take the pleat and fold it down. Repeat this step going clockwise. You should end up with overlapping pleats that eventually close up the pocket pie. Here’s a bao folding tutorial that has step by step photos.
6. Repeat steps 1-5 per pocket pie.
7. Put muffin tin in the oven for 30-40 minutes or until the dough is golden brown and flaky.
8. Use a butter knife to gently dislodge the pocket pies from the muffin tin. They should rotate and come out easily if the dough is ready and no filling spilled out.
9. Let cool and wrap in foil.
This sounds really delicious and something new to try. Thank you for sharing this.
Simon
how do you get 12 piecrust circles out of just 2 frozen crusts? just wondering if it should be 3 or 4 crusts to use for cutting the circles.
The pie crusts were rolled out a lot and all the little leftover bits combined to make more discs. The dough eventually got a little too loose from warming up and being handled a lot and I had to stick it in the fridge to firm up again. I’m sure using additional pie crusts is more efficient 🙂 Let me know how it turns out!
If you make the dough into small balls and then roll them out, you won’t have to bother cutting out the doughs into circles and having leftover bits.
That is definitely a smarter way to do it. Thanks Karinpa!
Would you say these are more of a day 1 backpacking meal? Or would they stay good for dinner on day 2? 85 for the high temperature…They look nums, by the way! Excited to make them!
These are more of a day 1 backpacking meal because the pie crust makes them a little fragile. Saving them for day 2 they might lead to a pie bomb explosion ;D Let us know if you experiment with the filling!
Thank you so much for this idea. I made some today to send wirh my daughter and husband for day 1 lunch on a canoe trip. I used left over pulled pork, regular spuds, grated carrot, onion, and garlic. I made them on a whim so that’s what I had laying about. They smelled amazing and popped easily out of the muffin pan (greased it VERY well). I baked the for 35 min at 375.
That sounds delicious Tonya. This is really the ideal recipe for gathering up random ingredients in the house and/or trying new flavor combinations. Thanks for sharing!
If you want to make pasrty from scratch this will make just enough for 12 pie bombs. Don’t worry about all the pastry “lore” like everything has to be cold, never touch it , yadda yadda… All that the bit of heat from your hands does is make the pastry a little tougher – and in a hand pie, that just means it will hold up a little better during travel.
1.5 cups regular flour
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 lb lard, butter, or a bit of each
– cut together with a pastry blender, or just crumble together with your hands until like coarse oatmeal.
1/2 egg
1 tsp vinegar
Water
– beat the egg in a cup with a fork
– put 1/2 of the egg in a 1/3 cup measure, beat in the vinegar and top it up with water
– stir the wet stuff into the dry stuff with the fork and mix until it forms a ball (use your hands at the end). Use a little more water if needed. If too sticky use a little more flour.
– tear it into 12 little balls and roll each one out to 6-7 inches and go from there 🙂
– if you are obsessed with using everything like I am, you can brush the leftover egg onto the tops of the pie bombs before baking to make them brown and shiny like they’re from a fancy bakery.
so delicious sounding! just to be clear, we’re eating this room temperature yes?
@linda, you have options here. If you make them fresh, you can definitely eat them hot. We ate them “room temperature” because we took them on a backpacking trip and ate them for lunch on the first day.
Made these for thanksgiving after seeing this recipe on Adventure Journal, because pre-made and transportable was necessary for my holiday plans, and they were a big hit with both sides of the family! My only comments are that the recipe portions are a bit off. Really struggled to get 6 mini pies per store-bought sheet of dough, and had a bunch of leftover filling, partly because the crust rounds were small and couldn’t hold much. But I just jarred it up and bought more pie crust, and everyone was happy to have them again!
I bet fried cabbage with onion, carrot, kielbasa and some sour kraut along with some toasted caraway seeds would be good in them too!
We’ve been making these with many different fillings (love your cookbook!!) but recently hit on our fave: caramelize 3 onions (takes a while!); while that’s going, cook 1/4 lb of bacon and chop into small bits; use the leftover bacon fat to sauté 2lbs sliced mushrooms, and season with sage. Combine mushrooms, onions and bacon. That’ll fill 12 pie bombs, more or less. I try to make my own (all butter) shortcrust pastry too. It’s amazing.
Beautiful idea and they tasted great. Everyone loved them, but I did not get 12 6“circles out of the two pie crusts 🙁