Ned Kelly Pie

He's been dead a while, luv...

Australian cuisine is not exactly well known worldwide. And there is no Aussie dish more elusive than the Ned Kelly Pie. The humble Aussie meat pie gets amplified to astonishing new heights by swapping the usual pastry lid for a protein-laden egg, cheese, and bacon one. Strewth!

'Rich' doesn’t quite do a Ned Kelly Pie justice. Named after Australia’s most famous outlawed bushranger - this week’s recipe is a version of Australia’s BEST pie. In truth, there is very little that separates the Aussie meat pie from the British one - the heavy dosing of ketchup in the gravy being the only real marker of difference. But with its rich egg and bacon topping, no one could argue that the Ned Kelly Pie were not uniquely Australian.

This pie is dear to my heart. It was introduced to me by my good friend T-Bone, who discovered it at a country bakery (near Torquay, Victoria I think). Bakeries that sell the pie are rare as hen’s teeth. On a visit to Melbourne, having sung its praises to me so enthusiastically, T-Bone and I initiated a pie hunt, ringing round all the bakeries we could find on Google maps within a drive-able distance of the city.