Moisture is a fundamental element of cooking. Ive had a dry pot pie and it's despressing
this post was submitted on 16 Apr 2025
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Lmao
In reality it's because the pastry used for the pie crust may be pre-made and defrosted/removed from fridge or have dried out a little between rolling, shaping and filling, so adding a bit of moisture will help prevent the pastry from hardening in the oven (and yes it helps w the gravy too)
This happens even if you're making fresh dough. The smallest bit of moving air will give dough a skin. I work in a commercial bakery and we have steam injection ovens for that reason. I've also worked on a wood fired brick oven with no steam injection, and we used to spray water in with a pressurized garden watering can with a wand (like in the video)
Interesting! This explains why the supermarket bakery I worked at had ovens that steamed everything.
Yup! Otherwise everything comes out white and chalky looking. Not very appealing, and hard on your teeth
My brother worked in a local bakery and they resorted to the method in OP's post. Steam injection oven sounds rad though!
You can get them for your home too. We were looking into it expecting it to be insanely priced, but I found one for about $1,200. That's not just something we can crack off anytime, but whenever we get around to redoing the kitchen, I'm hoping we can pull it off. It's a game changer if you bake a lot
Every bread is like steamed bread? Huh.
I found adding a tray with water to the oven makes absolutely no difference to no tray and I find that annoying cuz c'mon you got steam there, do the thing dammit
You can heat up a dry tray and then spray water into it when you put the bread in but I don't know how much of a difference that makes in a home oven. You could also just spray the loaf directly, or paint on some olive oil.
this spotted dick and eel jelly pie needs more boldness.
get the hose, Sebastian.
ahhh Sebastian is it? How very continental!
spotted dick pie
Good lord that really is a thing
I remember watching this vid. No lie, it sounded tasty at the end. Britain's most brilliant invention was putting over 50% of their food into pie-form.
Probably needed a bit of white pepper and maybe something tart like lemon. I bet a pinch of mustard could work, eel having a strong flavor and all. I'm not made of the kind of money to cross the pond, so this is all heresay on my part.
I dunno about how English eel tastes, but a bit of Julianned ginger slivers that are then cut into quarter inch slivers, a dollop of oyster sauce, a splash of light soy sauce, and a splash of sake or mirin will make them taste wonderful, probably. Also a few pinches of gochugaru if you want some heat.
Sounds phenomenal. I remember this guy laying on the parsley really thick. Not a bad thing on its own, just felt lacking at least one more spice.