Inside the rye crust, you'll find corned beef and sauerkraut in a Swiss cheese and Russian dressing sauce. The whole thing is topped with crunchy rye bread crumbles and more cheese.
3ouncesshredded Swiss cheeseIf you are shredding the cheese yourself, it would be easier to buy a block of Emmentaler cheese than to buy the thinly sliced pieces of Swiss cheese. Emmentaler is Swiss cheese.
In a medium-sized mixing bowl, mix all-purpose flour, rye flour, salt, caraway seeds, and sugar.
Cut cold butter into small pieces and very gently mix into dry ingredients until it forms pea-sized crumbs of butter covered in flour. A pastry cutter works great for this. I just use my hands. You want the butter to stay cold so don't massage it too much.
Add vodka a few tablespoons at a time. Mix into the other ingredients using a rubber spatula.
Add the water a few tablespoons at a time until the dough can stick together in a large ball. You should still be able to see small dollops of butter throughout the dough. If it's a little dry, add a touch more water until the dough comes together. The dough should be wet and sticky.
Divide the dough into five equal-sized balls.
Wrap each ball in plastic wrap and refrigerate for an hour or up to two days if you want to prepare in advance.
When you are ready to make the pies, preheat the oven to 350 F with the oven rack in the middle position.
Take out one ball at a time and roll into a roughly 6 inch diameter circle about 1/8 inch thick.
Transfer the rolled dough to a 5 inch pie tin and gently press it in.
Leave 1/2 an inch of overhang and trim anything beyond that.
Fold the extra 1/2 inch under itself and press the edges of the crust down using the tines of a fork to make little lines and crimp the dough together.
Repeat for the other four pies.
Put the crust-lined pie pans in the freezer for about twenty minutes. Unlike the effect cold weather has on men, freezing pie crusts helps prevent shrinkage.
Place the pie pans on a cookie sheet.
Line the frozen dough with parchment paper or foil and fill with pie beads, dried beans, or marbles.
Bake for 15 minutes.
Remove pie weights and parchment/foil and bake for another 10 minutes.
Remove from oven and cool to room temperature.
Cheese Sauce Instructions
In a small saucepan on medium heat, melt butter.
Whisk in flour until fully incorporated (about one minute).
Whisk in milk, salt, and pepper until the mixture thickens enough to stick to the back of a spoon (5 to 7 minutes).
Remove from heat and whisk in ketchup, mayonnaise, paprika, and cheese.
Topping Instructions
Toast bread.
Pulse bread, ketchup, mayonnaise, and paprika in a food processor to make small crumbs (or put all ingredients in a plastic bag and smash them up with a tin can).
Pie Assembly Instructions
Mix shredded corned beef and sauerkraut.
Mix in cheese sauce.
Divide evenly between prepared pie crusts.
Top each pie with even amounts of topping.
Bake for 20 minutes (your oven should still be at 350 F).
Top each pie with more shredded cheese and bake until cheese melts (about five minutes).
Serve warm.
Notes
The vodka in the crust recipe completely bakes out so it's totally OK for kids to eat it.