Success in Northern Ireland in British Pie Awards
Two Northern Ireland companies have figured in the prestigious British Pie Awards organised by the Melton Mowbray Pork Pie Association.
Fivemiletown Creamery, the Northern Irish leader in speciality cheese, helped a top artisan pie maker strike gold in the industry's equivalent of the Oscars, the prestigious British Pie Awards. And Cloughbane Farm Foods gained a silver award for its chicken pie. Cloughbane is based on a family farm at Pomeroy in County Tyrone.
The Great Northern Pie Company, based at Bramhall, near Manchester, turned to Fivemiletown Creamery for its unique soft goat's cheese and used it to create a highly innovative and ultimately award winning Beetroot, Fivemiletown Goat's Cheese, Orange and Pine Nuts Pie, which won gold in the Vegetarian Pie of the Year category.
A record 900 pies were entered in 18 categories by professional bakers and butchers from most parts of the UK in the event organised and hosted by the Melton Mowbray Pork Pie Association.
The pies underwent a stringent judging process by 93 food experts and celebrity chefs led by Andrew Chisholm. The panel, which included top food critic Charles Campion and food writer Xanthe Clay, TV chefs Rachel Green and Phil Vickery, scored the pies on a range of criteria including appearance and texture and taste of pastry and filling.
Peter Dunlop, Fivemiletown Creamery's marketing manager, says: "Being part of an award winning pie is this highly rated competition is a tremendous endorsement of the quality and versatility of our goat's cheese as a delicious food ingredient.
"Our goat's cheese is being used increasingly by top chefs and international catering organisations, including Gate Gourmet, to produce meals that are deliciously different."
Neil Broomfield, who owns the Great North Pie Co, says: " I really like to think of interesting combinations of flavours, putting a modern twist on traditional pie flavours. Goat's cheese with beetroot and orange works great in a salad, so why wouldn't these flavours transfer to a fantastic pie combination? Perfecting the pie recipes take time and patience as all the flavours need to be considered and balanced so that no particular flavour becomes overpowering.
"Fivemiletown goats cheese was brilliant to work with, very smooth and soft, it broke down easily in the pie when mixing the filling together. The texture it adds to the pie is lovely, very soft and smooth and full of flavour, but not overpowering at all.
"Our pies taste so great due to the sheer thought that goes into each pie combination. We do not create pies for the sake of creating pies, we really spend our time coming up with unique combinations which hopefully make our customers think 'ooh that's different'."
Neil Broomfield, a former policeman, started the Great North Pie Company in 2009. Although he trained in Michelin starred kitchens alongside top chefs such as Paul Heathcote and Jeff Baker, he is mostly self-taught.
Fivemiletown Creamery, founded in 1898 is Northern Ireland's only producer of speciality cheese including goat's cheese. The company, a farmers' owned creamery, has been selling dairy products including butter in Britain since 1900 and is now internationally recognised as an award winning producer.
It exports cheese worldwide to markets such as the US, China, Scandinavia, France and the Netherlands. It sources high protein milk from around 70 farmers.