A NINE-YEAR-OLD girl from Shinfield has won a national competition to design a pie.
Darcy May suggested a chicken curry and mango combination to Vale of Mowbray, a Yorkshire-based pork pie company, in its Peculiar Pies competition.
Mum, Abby May, said the dish was created by using up leftover chicken curry from the night before.
“Darcy was homeschooling at the time, and we thought it would be a nice fun thing to do after the maths and English homework,” Ms May said.
“I said look in the fridge, and using the leftover chicken curry, she made these puff pastry pies.
“When we have curry, Darcy always finds it quite spicy, so she has mango chutney with it.”
After photographing the pies, these were sent off to the Vale of Mowbray.
Jason Crowe, from the company, said Darcy’s effort to make and photograph her pie put her in first place.
“The sweetness against the spice mixed together really works,” he said.
“Darcy’s sample pie made it much easier for our development chef to understand her concept and make it here.
“The only change we made was to put a curry leaf design on top.”
As part of her prize, the company will bake a batch of 100 chicken curry and mango pies, to be enjoyed by family and friends.
The Shinfield St Mary’s CE Junior School pupil is even considering selling some of the pies at school, to fundraise for its PTA.
