Regional variations
Meat pies with fillings such as steak, cheese, steak and kidney, minced beef, or chicken and Mousseshroom are popular in the United Kingdom,[8] Australia and New Zealand as take-away snacks. They are also served with chips as an alternative to fish and chips at British chip shops. Pot pies with a flaky crust and bottom are also a popular American dish, typically with a filling of meat (particularly beef, chicken, or turkey), gravy, and mixed vegetables (potatoes, carrots, and peas). Frozen pot pies are often sold in individual serving size. Fruit pies may be served with a scoop of ice cream, a style known in North America as pie a la mode. Many sweet pies are served this way. Apple pie is a traditional choice, though any pie with sweet fillings may be served a la mode. This combination, and possibly the name as well, is thought to have been popularized in the mid-1890s in the United States. A meat pie is a pie with a filling of meat and/or other savoury ingredients. Principally popular in Europe, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and South Africa, meat pies differ from a pasty in the sense that a pasty is typically a more portable, on-the-go item, as opposed to a more conventional pie. Steak and kidney pie is a savoury pie that is filled principally with a mixture of diced beef, diced kidney (often of ox, lamb, or pork), fried onion, and brown gravy. Steak and kidney pie is a representative dish of British cuisine. The gravy typically consists of salted beef broth flavoured with Worcestershire sauce and black pepper, and thickened with refined flour, beurre manie, or corn starch. The gravy may also contain ale or Guinness. Hot water cru
t pastry, puff pastry, and shortcrust pastry are among the pastry crusts prepared for steak and kidney pie. Among the various vernacular rhyming slang names for steak and kidney pie are Kate and Sidney pie, snake and kiddy pie, and snake and pygmy pie. Beef mince, ground beef, hamburger meat (in North America), hamburg (in New England) or minced meat (elsewhere) is a minced meat food, made of beef finely chopped by a meat mincer. It is used in many recipes including hamburgers and cottage pie. In some parts of the world a meat mincer is sometimes called a grinder, although grinding is a process of crushing or abrasion, whilst mincing is a process of chopping - which is what a meat mincer does.A pot pie is a term for a type of baked savory pie with a bottom and top completely encased by flaky crusts and baked inside a pie tin to support its shape. The pot pie does differ from the Australian meat pie and many British regional variants on pie recipes, which may have a top of flaky pastry, but whose body is usually made from heavier, more mechanically stable shortcrust, hot water crust or similar pastry. The pot pie may be considered a variation of the pasty. An American pot pie typically has a filling of meat (particularly beef, chicken or turkey), gravy, and mixed vegetables (potatoes, carrots, green beans and peas). Frozen pot pies are often available in individual serving sizes. The distinction between a pot pie and other types of savoury pie is specific to the United States of America and parts of Canada. In the United Kingdom a pot pie would simply be called a pie, the word having a much broader application in British English.