The problem with mince pies is their proportions. The typical mince pie is overloaded with mincemeat and intensely sweet. If the pastry is good and short, it will collapse in your hand as you take a bite, gifting you with a shatter of crumbs and sticky fingers.
The solution, I have discovered, is to use the same ingredients but re-engineer the mince pie in the form of a Chinese jiaozi dumpling. At first, I did this out of necessity, when I was spending my first Christmas away from home and family as a student in the Sichuanese capital Chengdu and, with my international classmates, attempting to recreate traditional festive foods in unfamiliar conditions.
Mince pies were essential, of course, but I couldn’t buy mincemeat, or even dried currants, let alone a mince-pie tin, so I was forced to improvise. I fashioned a sort of mincemeat out of green Xinjiang sultanas, candied jujubes and citrus peel, cheap Chinese bai-lan-di (the local brandy) and strawberry jam. And then, tinless, I used a large glass to cut circles out of shortcrust pastry, folded these in half around a dollop of filling, brushed them with beaten egg and baked them.