Australia’s best pie has a Malaysian prawn curry filling – and its bakers have even bolder flavours in mind

Ryan and Chan Khun of Country Cob bakery in Victoria have won accolades for their satay fish and Cambodian pork pies, with a Singapore chilli crab filling on its way When Ryan Khun first arrived in Australia from Cambodia in 2012, aged 27, he had never tasted a pie. That is, until his older brother Chan took him to a servo for a meat pie: flaky pastry on the outside, a molten mince slurry in the middle. His first meal in Australia, unfamiliar tastes in a new land. Remembering how he felt after those first few bites, Khun says: “There is something I don’t really like.” Pies were not something he grew up eating in Phnom Penh, but today a metal trophy sits in his office at Country Cob bakery in Springvale in south-east Melbourne. It reads “2026 Australian Best Pie Competition Official Overall Winner”, and it’s so big, he could hide behind it. It’s the fifth time in eight years the bakery has taken home the coveted award from the Baking Association of Australia (BAA), and Country Cob’s winning entry this year was a Malaysian-style prawn curry pie, where golden pastry encases a filling of coconut-poached prawns doused with galangal, lemongrass, chilli and ginger. Khun’