The giant mince pie

This is my alternative to the fiddle-faddle of making those pesky little pastry cases with irritating lids and an insufficient proportion of juicy filling to dry crumbly shell.

Called a 'jalousie' (French for window blind, which the pie resembles), it's simplicity itself. Here's what to do.

The basic ingredients are a slab of (un)frozen puff pastry, a jar of mincemeat and a few apples of any sort - the wizened ones left in the fruit bowl are fine. And an egg.

Chop apples roughly. Mix with mincemeat and, if you wish, add a couple of large spoonfuls of marmalade too.
Cut the dough in half. Roll out one half to fit a swiss roll tin. Lay it in the tin.
Spread the mincemeat mixture on top leaning a margin of an inch or so all around. Brush the margin with beaten egg and milk..
Roll out the other half of pastry to the same size. Fold in half lengthways and with a knife or scissor make parallel cuts along the fold towards the edge but leaving an inch margin all around. (You can easily stick the pastry together if you cut too far.)
Unfold the scored pastry sheet and carefully lay it over the mincemeat. Line up the margins as best you can, press them together and use the back of a spoon or something to make a decorative edging. Brush the remaining egg over the surface.
Bake in hot oven until the pastry has browned, the contents of the pie are oozing though the interstices of the jalousie, and the whole thing smells divine. The actual timing is mostly guesswork.

I made this (just a hour beforehand) for my reading group's Christmas meeting, an annual event at which we share poems or extracts and enjoy a meal to which we all contribute. We don't plan but the pot luck always turns out to be a excellent balance of dishes.

(You can use this same method with different fillings, sweet or savoury. Apple alone is good and is spinach, egg and cheese. It really doesn't matter if it looks a bit messy to begin with - pastry is very forgiving and the finished pie is guaranteed to impress.)