Pie and mash – it sounds as though nothing could be easier to knock up for your next meal. A look in the fridge might find you all the ingredients you need and making the pastry casing surely isn’t that too difficult a job. Making the all-important liquor to go with it might be more of a challenge, but so long as it’s green it will probably pass muster – you hope.

The easiest and probably far more successful way of making sure that you have that glorious pie, mash and liquor combination, though, is to order the whole meal online or by mail order for delivery to your home, where it is ready to eat straight away, can be kept fresh in the fridge for a few days or put in the freezer for longer-term storage.

Pie, mash and liquor delivery – of quality, hand crafted pies – leaves nothing to chance and nothing to tax your potentially zero culinary skills.

Despite the obvious attraction of ordering such a delivery, though, there are still those kitchen wizards who may insist that pie, mash and liquor is not beyond them and a number of recipes are not so difficult to find online:

BBC

• there is a BBC recipe, for instance, for what is claimed to be for “traditional” pie ‘n’ mash;

• the pie casing is made from a suet pastry, with a shortcrust pastry for the lid;

• the filling is based on minced beef, with the addition of onion and garlic, tomato puree, ground black pepper, English mustard, and brown ale;

• the mashed potatoes are, well, just mashed potatoes – but the option of a little chilli oil to taste; but

• the disappointment probably comes in the shape of the otherwise mysterious liquor, which in this recipe is a fairly simple and straight forward parsley sauce (yes, we know liquor is parsley sauce, but that isn’t the point!);

The Hub-UK

• similarly disappointing, is the recipe for the liquor or “green gravy” reproduced by the kitchen and cookery website The Hub-UK;

• this also describes a straight forward parsley sauce, made by melting butter in a pan and adding a little flour, to which water or chicken stock is added whilst stirring continuously;

Keef the Chef

• Keef the Chef borrows the BBC’s standard recipe for creating the casing from suet pastry and a shortcrust pastry top, filled with minced beef (spiced with Worcester sauce) and onions;

• where Keef branches out, however, is the suggestion for making the liquor from boiled eels or fish stock, into which generous handfuls of parsley are added;

• for serving, the eels are removed, the liquor is thickened with a little flour, and chilli vinegar is added to taste;

Food.com

• the aptly named com also describes a method for making the pie casing from suet pastry and a shortcrust pastry top;

• the filling in this example is also made from minced beef and onion, seasoned with salt, pepper and Worcester sauce, thickened with a little cornflour;

• the liquor too is based on a fish and vegetable stock, thickened with cornflour, and mixed with a handful of parsley

If you have noticed one area where the recipes seem to fall short of the mystique of east London, it is the liquor and, of course, that indefinable touch of the master baker. The answer is at your fingertips if you order the whole dish for pie, mash and liquor to be delivered to you at home.