I hope you guys are enjoying Vintage Pie July, because I am having a great time doing this. Who knew there were so many fun vintage pies?
And vintage pies made out of meat!
This is Rice Pie With Meat Crust!
- 1 pound ground beef
- 1/2 cup dry bread crumbs
- 1/4 cup chopped onion
- 1/4 cup chopped green pepper
- 1 1/2 tsp salt
- 1/4 pepper
- 2 8-ounce cans (2 cups) seasoned tomato sauce
- 3 cups cooked rice
- 3/4 cups grated process American cheese
- Combine beef, crumbs, onions, green pepper, seasonings and 1/2 cup of the tomato sauce. Pat mixture onto bottom and sides of greased 10-inch pie plate.
- Combine rice with remaining tomato sauce and 1/2 cup of the cheese. Spoon into meat shell.
- Bake in moderate oven (350 degrees) for 25 mins. Sprinkle with remaining cheese and bake 5 more minutes or until done.
Now, this isn’t our first meat-crusted pie. We previously made Meat-Crusted Corn Pie, which ended up being really good even without Fritos and cheese. But there was one thing about that corn pie that I remember very well! Well, two things.
1) Use a deep dish pie plate for meat pies.
2) The fat doesn’t drain off, but stays in the pie.
In the Corn Pie, this undrained fat had no where to go. It just sort of oozed up over the sides a bit and mingled with the liquid filling. Which made for a pretty greasy dish. But in this lovely Rice Pie, we have tons of fluffy white rice just waiting to suck up all that fat. Problem solved, right?
Except the rice looks like a pile of maggots.
Better. Now it just looks like dried out Spanish rice with some sort of funk at the bottom.
“How is it?”
“Not bad, it’s a little bland.”
“Oh, we need to hurry up. Alex wants some more rice.”
The Verdict: Good
From The Tasting Notes –
The baby LOVED this, so that should clue you into the level of seasoning in this pie. It basically tasted like salt, tomato, rice and meat. Not bad, but not the best thing ever. The meat crust is actually the best part, and tasted like a classic meatloaf. If you don’t like the flavor of green pepper, you could probably substitute celery for green pepper very easily and make it taste even more “meatloaf-y”. The rice really soaks up the fat from the meat, so if you are going to make this I would suggest a ground meat that isn’t incredibly fatty. Overall, a fun alternative to meatloaf!
I would pre-bake the “crust” and soak up the grease with a wad of paper towels. Then I would put in the rice filling. Both the meat and the rice are already cooked, just needs to be warmed up good and hot, maybe put under the broiler the last couple of minutes.
This sounds good to me. But I’d be throwing in copious amounts of Old Bay and Crystal Hot Sauce.
In whose world does something like rice pie never NOT look like a pile of festering maggots? As soon as I heard “rice pie” I knew that it wasn’t going to be pretty, no matter how good (or bland) it tasted. If anything, the old picture makes it seem even worse (as usual…) Oh, mid-century food photographers–what WERE you drinking?
I love these posts!
Spices made people nervous in the fifties. There used to be two groceries stores across the street from each other in my hometown. One was for Italians and carried garlic and oregano and sun-dried tomatoes. The other was for the Irish and carried salt and pepper and potatoes. Garlic toast was as exotic as it got when I was young.
Sounds palatable but potentially bland. Probably I’d add more spices or serve with hot sauce.
Has anyone solved the mystery of grated processed American cheese yet? Was the stuff capable of being grated back then? I was born in 1961 and don’t recall any pre-grated cheese in my childhood apart from Kraft Parmesan, so ready-grated or ready-shredded versions seem unlikely.
Briefly in 1942 I think, it was illegal to make any cheese in the US but processed American. Something in me wants to believe it can’t have been as vile then if such a law could have been passed.
I’m a secret fan of meat-crust rice pies. They’re shockingly, weirdly delicious.
OK, I made this one tonight. I thought I’d be brilliant and press the meat mixture into my Le Creuset skillet and broil it before adding the rice so I could drain the grease, which worked perfectly, but the rice came out dry without the extra grease. It tasted fine, not bland (I seasoned it more?), but I decided that if I ever made this again, I’d make a cheese sauce to serve with it instead of add the cheese to the top. Not that this one is high on the Make Again list.
UPDATE: I cut the “pie” into six servings and froze the leftovers. Serving the leftovers with a simple cheese sauce (white sauce + cheese) with added peeled, seeded fresh tomato tossed in, this is now going to be a regular. I used cheddar, actually a Red Leicester, not processed cheese.
RetroRuth, I love playing with these recipes. Thanks for your time and effort on this blog. My family would never have known the joy of meat-based “pies” otherwise. 😉
My mother.used to make this for us. We loved it! Sharp cheddar on top I’m going to try it soon. So excited I found it
My family would make this with Uncle Ben’s wild rice, added sour cream to the rice and sharp cheddar cheese. Tastes great. Not bland at all.
My mom made this us back in the 60’s. I make it myself a few times a year. We all love it. We use minute rice and lots of old cheddar. You can also throw some spinach in the rice mix. I’ve never had a grease problem I only use lean ground. I’m actually making this today, we are in need of some comfort food.