We love to make sure that our pies are perfect. That takes time. The slower you cook a stew the better it gets. Some people would get bored of waiting but we know that it takes time to get it right.

“The temptation is always to rush things, to make more pies more quickly. But we are serious about giving each stage of the process – and each ingredient – the time it takes to be perfect. So when we make our pastry we are sure to let it ‘rest’ for two hours before rolling it. When we cook a beef stew with lashings of beer we like to cook it for three hours to allow the meat to become tender and almost ‘melt’ in the mouth. We always leave our beef stews for a day before putting them into a pie because the flavours really deepen as it sits and waits. One of the major ingredients in a Higgidy pie is definitely time”