What’s the point of eating a savory pot pie if there isn’t crust in every bite? You may as well be eating a bowl of chowder — that’s the way baker Casey Burns sees it.

It’s why she puts a flaky, buttery cover on every four-inch pie made by her company, HI Pie. It’s the best part, Burns says definitively. And with a double crust, “you can pick it up and eat it without any utensils; you can eat it on the go!”

So it’s an idea the fast-food generation can easily grab, eating from one hand while steering the car with the other. (Eating the hand pie was tested successfully while stuck in traffic. But no one said anything about neatness.)

The hand pie was a convenience food way back in 19th-century England when Cornish miners with dirty hands could hold the crusty edges and later discard them like the paper wrappers we toss today. These Cornish “pasties,” as they were called, were shaped like a round piece of dough folded over, and other cultures have their own versions, like Spain’s empanadas or Greece’s spanakopitas.

Burns has worked with owners of the new Village Bottle Shop & Tasting Room in Salt at Our Kakaako to create a variety of savory pies, which their craft beer customers are “surprised but excited” to find, said co-owner Tim Golden. Many of their customers have come in just for the pie because it’s so well done — “It’s become it’s own thing,” he said. The retail-bar shop doesn’t have it’s own kitchen but does have an oven to heat up the pies, and the warm, buttery aroma that infuses the place is its own advertisement.

The most popular is the steak and stout pie on the regular menu, but on the rotating specials, it’s the mac-n-cheese with chunky ham — “it’s decadent and gut busting,” Golden said. Other crazy ideas they’ve tried have included a luau pie with kalua pig, lomi salmon, and sweet potato. There’s even a ground-beef Shepherd’s pie with cheesy mashed potatoes on the top.

But there’s also a sweet side to Burns’ pastry skills. She’s especially proud of her moist poi-banana bread, regularly sold with other confections the past four years at Kokua Market and Island Village Coffee.

Burns has a degree in tourism and travel, but has no formal culinary training. She found she was happiest, however, while holding a variety of jobs related to food, including baking apple pies for a restaurant where she was a waitress.

Shortly after moving to Hawaii five years ago, she formed HI Pie, a one-woman operation. For the first two years, she worked out of Kokua Market’s kitchen. Now she works from a commercial kitchen at the KEY (Kualoa-Heeia Ecumenical Youth) Project community center in Kaneohe, to which she donates a percentage of her sales, with two prep cooks and delivery driver to assist.

“I really feel part of this community. I’ve really gotten to know the farmers, and it was really important to make connection with Oahu because it’s my home now,” said Burns, who grew up in Wisconsin and California. “It was like I’m supposed to be here; it’s such a blessing.”

She met taro farmers Paul and Charlie Reppun, who provide the poi and fresh bananas used in the 160 loaves she makes per week for Island Village’s four Oahu locations, and other markets. Burns uses local sources, and “we use the best stuff,” she said, including real butter and no imitation anything.

She said she’s happy to give out a recipe for fillings, but her pies are “all about the crust — that I won’t give away. A recipe is just a recipe, but there’s something about the way your mom can make it, or your aunt, and then she’ll give you the recipe and it won’t taste anything like it. There’s something in each of us that comes out in our food.”

But learning to mix the basic ingredients of flour, water, butter and salt comes quickly if you love it, like developing any other skill, and then “you get to know it more intimately and deeply and think of all the different ways you can tweak it, and that’s food! … Because it’s such a joy, it’s easy to play with.”

Casey Burns shares a standard recipe for chicken pot pie, that does not include her secret ingredient in the crust. If you don’t feel like making your own crust, use a prepared commercial dough mix.

CHICKEN POT PIE

By Casey Burns

>> Filling:

• 1/4 cup butter
• 1/3 to 1/2 cup onion, diced
• 1 medium carrot, sliced
• 1 stalk celery, sliced
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• 1/3 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon pepper
• 1 teaspoon basil/thyme mix (like McCormick’s Bruschetta)
• 1-3/4 cups chicken broth
• 1/3 cup heavy cream
• 1-1/2 to 2 cups rotisserie chicken, shredded
• 1/2 cup frozen peas

>> Crust:

• 1- 3/4 sticks butter
• 2-1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 2-1/4 teaspoons salt
• 1/2 cup cold water
• 1 egg, beaten

To make filling: In skillet over medium, heat butter. Add onion, carrots, celery and garlic; cook until tender.

Whisk in flour, salt, pepper, herbs, chicken broth and heavy cream. Stir over medium heat for 10 minutes or until sauce has thickened. Stir in chicken and peas, remove from heat. Allow to thicken and chill in refrigerator before filling crust.

For crust, cut butter into one-inch pieces and mix it into flour and salt with an electric mixer, using a paddle attachment. When it starts to become granular, slowly add water in a steady stream. When the dough comes together, stop mixing. Don’t over mix. It should feel damp and firm, and not stick to your floured hands.

Section out pastry to make three balls, each about the size of a large lemon, for the 4-inch pans. Chill at least for an hour in the refrigerator. Cut one of the balls in half for the top crusts.

Roll out the larger balls to cover the base of the pans, leaving enough dough overhanging the edges. Roll out the half-balls for the top crusts, also leaving enough overhanging dough. Scoop filling onto bottom crusts, and cover with top crusts. Pinch edges of top and bottom crusts together.

Brush tops with egg wash, and slice an opening in each for a steam vent. Bake small pies at 375 degrees for 20 minutes; or large pie for 40 to 45 minutes. Makes two 4-inch pies or one 8-inch pie.

Approximate nutritional information, (based on two-4 inch pies): 1860 calories, 120 g fat, 71 g saturated fat, 520 mg cholesterol, greater than 5000 mg sodium, 134 g carbohydrate, 7 g fiber, 6 g sugar, 62 g protein.