Tamal Ray

Why it earned the handshake

Tamal’s official BBC Food recipe builds a traditional raised game pie around a gentle ras-el-hanout spice blend. Rabbit, pigeon, venison, and lamb meet potato, barberries, apricots, almonds, yoghurt, and two kinds of molasses; the filling is enclosed in a sturdy hot-water crust and finished with pastry leaves, roses, and diamonds. It is an ambitious Victorian-showstopper shape with a flavour profile that travels well beyond the usual game pie.

Ingredients

Spice mix

• 12.5ml ras-el-hanout
• 7.5ml ground cinnamon
• 5ml ground ginger
• 2.5ml paprika
• 2.5ml ground cumin
• 2.5ml Kashmiri chilli powder

Filling

• 350g Maris Piper potatoes, peeled and cut into 2.5cm cubes (about 280g after peeling)
• 45ml vegetable oil
• 280g rabbit meat, cubed
• 280g pigeon breast, cubed
• 120g venison, cubed
• 280g lamb mince, about 20% fat
• 25g dried barberries
• 100g dried apricots, cut into thirds
• 60g whole blanched almonds, toasted and chopped
• 100g full-fat Greek yoghurt
• 60ml pomegranate molasses
• 60ml date molasses
• 6.3ml table salt

Hot-water crust pastry

• 80g unsalted butter
• 140g lard, plus extra to grease the tin
• 5ml table salt
• 300g plain flour, plus extra for dusting
• 300g strong white bread flour
• 1 large free-range egg, beaten, for glazing

You will also need a 20cm/8in springform cake tin.

Method

1. Combine all the spice-mix ingredients in a small bowl. Heat the oven to 180°C/160°C fan.
2. Cook the potato cubes in boiling water for 5–7 minutes: they should soften without losing their shape. Heat the oil in a large frying pan, fry the spice mix for a minute, then brown the diced meats over high heat for 2–3 minutes. Add the lamb and cook for another minute over medium heat.
3. Stir in the potatoes, dried fruit, and toasted almonds. Add the yoghurt and both molasses, cooking until the mixture is combined and slightly reduced. Season with the salt, remove from the heat, and let the filling cool a little.
4. For the pastry, heat the butter, lard, salt, and 240ml water in a saucepan until the fats have melted. Mix the plain and bread flours in a bowl, pour in the hot liquid, and stir to a smooth dough. When it is cool enough to handle, knead briefly. Set aside one third for the lid and decorations.
5. Dust the worktop and rolling pin, then roll the larger portion to about 4mm thick. Use it to line the greased 20cm springform tin. Add the filling, brush the pastry edge with egg wash, and roll out two thirds of the reserved dough for the lid. Seal and crimp the rim, then cut a steam hole in the centre.
6. Roll the final pastry portion thinly and cut leaves of different sizes. Fix them to the lid with egg wash, then glaze the whole pie. Bake for 1½ hours, checking after an hour and repositioning the pie if it is colouring unevenly.
7. Shape leftover pastry into roses and small diamonds. Bake the diamonds for 10 minutes and the roses for 25 minutes on a lined tray. When the pie is cooked, carefully remove the tin sides, attach the diamonds to the sides with egg wash, brush the rose bases with egg, and return the pie to the oven for 5 minutes to set the decorations.
8. Serve warm or cold.

Baker’s tips

• The archived source suggests dried cranberries as a substitute if barberries are unavailable.
• Keep the potatoes only just tender so they retain their shape in the filling.
• Let the filling cool slightly before it goes into the pastry case; the crust is easier to handle when the filling is not piping hot.
• Make the steam hole before baking, and check the pie after an hour so the tall crust colours evenly.

Make-ahead

The published recipe gives no separate make-ahead schedule, but it explicitly says the finished pie may be served warm or cold. Follow the source’s cooling and decoration steps before choosing the serving temperature.

Chapter 5: Pastry Week

Pastry Week rewards structure under pressure. A samosa has to seal around a generous filling without bursting, a custard tart must hold a clean wobble in a crisp shell, and a raised pie has to stand tall while carrying layers of flavour. These five handshakes cover South Asian savoury pastry, patisserie-style custards, a showstopping terrine pie, and the picnic-pie tradition. This chapter includes all five verified Hollywood handshakes mapped to Pastry Week in the research index. Rahul Mandal and David Atherton have exact official Great British Bake Off recipe pages. Crystelle Pereira has an official related terrine-pie adaptation, which is labelled as such below. Ruby Bhogal and Cristy Sharp. A note on the handshake: these are unofficial fan-homage entries tied to the documented baker, UK series, week theme, and challenge type. They do not claim to reproduce an on-screen bake when the public record does not provide a recipe.