A little pie shop in Canterbury might've just cooked up the priciest pie in all of Aotearoa. So, what's in this beast, you ask?
Turns out, it's a crayfish pie from PJ's Pies in Hanmer Springs that'll set ya back a solid $50.
PJ's Pies, run by Bratschi and his partner, both Swiss-trained chefs, are well known for their pies stocked in supermarkets all over the South Island.
But they wanted to whip up something a bit more flash, so they got their hands on some top-notch cray from Kaikōura.
The base is creamy mashed spuds and leek, and they turn the cray shells into a posh bisque – that's a crayfish sauce with cognac, white wine, and a bunch of herbs and spices. The crays get cooked and layered in the pie, topped off with what Bratschi calls "obnoxiously crispy pastry."
And if you reckon $50 is a bit of a rip, it seems like the locals aren't fussed. In fact, Bratschi reckons it could've been even pricier.
"If I filled that pie just with crayfish, it’d probably have to have double the price tag," he told RNZ.
"We could have sold another 10 to 20 pies. We had to take orders for people to come back, which is a good and a bad thing.”
Inspired by the success of the crayfish pie, Bratschi was already cooking up new ideas.
It’d be pretty hard to beat this one.
