Pork Pie Perfection?

Hello There Peckish Posse!

Welcome back to my recipe blog.

This week I wanted to do  something for you that not only have I never tried cooking before but also isn't my own recipe.
Most of the blogs I've done for you so far have been from my own tried and trusted recipes, things I've tweaked and adjusted over the years to create dishes that, in my opinion, are pretty much foolproof and get the most out of the ingredients used but I am a naturally inquisitive chef and love to try new things to cook. Sometimes these work straight off the bat, sometimes I can be quite disappointed with the results, especially when I've stuck to a recipe that may have come from a Sunday newspaper food supplement or a recipe book.

This weeks pork pie is a case in point. It's an old family recipe that my mom always used to make for Christmas and was always the best pork pie I have ever tasted. Or was it?
Memory can be a strange thing sometimes, particularly when it comes to food. For instance, when I was a kid I couldn't stand tomatoes, they literally made me feel sick. Obviously as you get older your taste buds change and these days I can munch my way through every variety of them, from tiny baby plum tomatoes with their thick skins and firm flesh to mild and juicy beef tomatoes. Sometimes though, I can be about to bite into a tomato and just for a split second I get that sickly feeling I used to have all those years ago. It doesn't stop me from eating them, but the memory is still there in my mind.

So, I got my mom to dig out the recipe for the pork pie for me and thought I'd give it a go without changing anything, not the ingredients, cooking times, method, anything, just to see if my memory served me correctly.

What I ended up with was a perfectly acceptable home made pork pie. I took some to the blokes at work and they were mightily impressed, I took a couple of slices with me in a picnic over Cannock Chase to share with a beautiful woman, who was also sufficiently satisfied. But, and this is crucial to me, my own thoughts on it were, to put it into modern vernacular, "meh!"
Don't get me wrong, it's a great recipe, the meat was perfectly cooked, the jelly was tasty and it looked really impressive with its shiny egg washed glazed top but, for the amount of time and effort I'd put into it I wasn't totally happy.
The main problem for me was the pastry. While the top was nice and short with a lovely crumbly texture the sides and base seemed to be a little undercooked. It may be the case that a bit longer in the oven would have sorted this but I think a more satisfying solution would be to blind bake a pastry base first ( there's no blind baking in the recipe and I had a look on the Internet to see if there was a different one that called for blind baking, but couldn't find one.)  then assemble the rest of the pie and bake it again. As I said, the original recipe is a good one, it's not difficult and there was certainly nothing wrong with the taste or texture of the rest of it, so what I'm going to do is give you the recipe for you to try and at some stage in the future I'll revisit it and see if I can get it to my liking.

OK then, lets get on with my moms recipe Pork Pie!

Pork Pie Recipe. ( makes one large pie, about 12-16 slices.)

Equipment:

9" springform cake tin.

Kitchen scales.

Rolling pin.

Medium saucepan.

Large mixing bowl.

Measuring jug.

Pastry brush.

Ingredients: (for the pie.)

1kg joint of boned pork shoulder.

400g pork belly. (slices or whole.)

250g of smoked middle bacon.

2 tablespoons of English mustard.

1 tablespoon dried sage.

Half a tablespoon of dried thyme.

Half of a whole nutmeg, grated, or 1 teaspoon of ground nutmeg.

1 teaspoon of salt.

1 teaspoon of ground white pepper.

200g of lard.

575g of plain flour.

220ml cold water.

1 egg, beaten, for the glaze.

Ingredients: (for the jelly.)

6 gelatine leaves.

250ml of chicken stock, or 1 chicken stock cube made up with 250ml boiling water.

Half a teaspoon of dried parsley.

Method:

Pre-heat your oven to 180 degrees c/ gas mark 4.

Remove the rind and as much fat as you can from the pork joint. ( you can freeze this to make crackling or scratchings at a later date.)

 









Cut the meat into 3 manageable pieces, then "butterfly" each piece to make it easier to chop up. ( to butterfly is to cut each piece almost all of the way through and open it out, it makes the next stage a lot easier, see picture.)

You can then start to cut the meat small chunks.
There is quite a lot of cutting to do for this recipe, I suppose you could use minced pork if you wanted to make it easier but I much prefer the texture of the meat if it is cut.

Put the chopped meat into the mixing bowl and then remove the rind and any little bits of bone from the pork belly. Chop this up too, in the same size chunks as the shoulder meat and add it to the mixing bowl.













Cut up the bacon in the same way and, once again put it in the mixing bowl with the belly and shoulder meat.
















To the bowl add the mustard, nutmeg, thyme, sage and salt and pepper and give it a thorough mixing with your hands so that everything is nicely seasoned throughout.


Set the meat mixture aside whilst you do the pastry.


Put the 220ml of water and the lard in a saucepan and gently bring to the boil so the lard melts.

Weigh out the flour and put in a large mixing bowl.

When the lard has melted in the water, add to the flour in the bowl.

Then begin bringing the pastry together using a wooden spoon.
(you need to work quite quickly with the pastry from now on)















When the pastry starts to come together go in with your hands. The pastry will be hot so please be careful, but you do need to get it done quickly so go at it as soon as you can and whilst the pastry is as hot as you can stand.

Once the pastry comes together remove from the bowl and knead until nice and smooth. ( about 5 minutes kneading will do the trick)














Cut about a quarter of the pastry off and wrap in clingfilm, or pop into a freezer bag to use as the lid.

With the rest of the pastry, roll it out to about the same size as the springform tin and carefully place it in the bottom.

It doesn't matter if the pastry is a little small, as you are now going to "hand raise" the pie crust.

With your hands, gently push the pastry into the bottom rim of the tin, then push it up the sides, being careful not to tear the pastry base. If it does tear then patch it up with a bit from the sides.

Bring the pastry right up the sides of the tin so there is a little over the top .

Try and get the pastry a nice even thickness across the base and up the sides, You have a few minutes to get it right before the pastry cools too much so sqidge and squash it till you're satisfied.

As I said before, there's no "blind baking" of the pastry before you fill it so getting this part right is pretty crucial.

When you are happy with the pastry fill it with the meat, use about a third of the meat first to make sure it gets right into the edges of the pastry, then add the rest of the meat and push it down.














Roll out the remaining quarter of the pastry to approximately the size of the tin.
Then, with the rolling pin, lift it and cover the meat with it.

Press the lid down onto the meat and fold the pastry from the sides of the tin over the lid.

 You can then crimp the edge of the pie using your thumb and forefinger.

Make a hole in the middle of the lid with the handle of a spoon and you are ready to bake!

Put the pie on the bottom shelf of the oven and bake for 40 minutes, then turn the heat down to 160 degrees c and continue to bake for another 90 minutes. Have a check now and then to make sure the top isn't browning too quickly, if it starts to catch then either place a baking sheet on the shelf above the pie or cover the pie loosely with a sheet of tin foil. If your oven is anything like mine ( used a lot!) then it might also be a good idea to turn the pie round a couple of times while baking to ensure it cooks evenly.

After the 90 minutes is up remove the pie from the oven and glaze with the beaten egg. Return to the oven for another 15 minutes, then take it out and give it a second glaze.

 

Give it another 10 minutes baking to get a nice shiny top and remove from the oven.

Now you need to let the pork pie cool completely before you can add the jelly. I left mine out on the window ledge for a couple of hours, covered with a tea towel, then popped it in the fridge overnight, still covered in the tea towel to chill. ( I didn't want to cover it with cling film as this can lead to the top of the pie steaming from the cooling meat and going soggy.)

When the pie is completely cooled, you can make up the jelly.

 

Put the gelatine leaves in a tub of cold water and allow to soften for about 10 minutes. If you are making the stock with a stock cube then make sure it has cooled to room temperature before you add the gelatine as it won't set if the stock is too hot.











Squeeze the excess water from the gelatine and add to the stock.

Then pour the stock, a little at a time into the hole in the lid of the
pork pie.


Put the whole pie, still in the tin, onto a plate to catch any stock that might escape and return to the fridge until the jelly is set. This should take a couple of hours.











Once the Jelly is set, you can release the ring from the springform tin and slice up to serve!

I like mine with some nice homemade piccalilli and a green salad.

And there you go! I do love the taste and texture of the meat in the finished pie, much nicer than the solid lump of minced up who knows what you get in store bought pies!

So, that's it then for another blog. I shall return to this recipe in future when I've tweaked it a bit. Maybe I'll make a batch of smaller pies and bake them without using a tin to get a crisper pastry all over and less of a soggy bottom!

It's going to be another pudding blog next week and I've also been invited to the opening of a new restaurant next week, so I shall be doing a review of it for you soon!

Until next time then,

Happy cooking!

 

Mat.