Pork pie

[Paul Kribs]

Franco

I used this recipe.

The hot crust pastry, enough for one 3" pie:
100 grm plain flour
1/4 tsp salt
35 grm lard
60 ml boiling water.

For the filling
170g minced pork
50g smoked streaky Bacon, finely chopped
1/4 tsp chopped sage
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/4 tsp Worcestershire sauce
pinch each of salt and pepper

The lard is mixed with the boiling water until melted, this is then poured into a well made in the mixed flour and salt. Mix until a firm but warm dough is formed.

Allow the dough to cool slightly to firm up. Your hands will be a bit greasy from making the dough so run these around the end of the dolly you intend to use and then cover with flour, base as well. This will assist with releasing the dolly. If you don't you'll not get it off without destroying the walls of the pie.. Even then it's gently does it. Reserve about 1/4 of the dough for the lid. To raise the pie, place the remaining dough on a flour dusted surface and roughly form a disk about 1" larger than the dolly and about 1/2" thick.

Alternately you can substitute 10 grms of the lard with 10 grms of butter for a tastier pastry. Add the hot liquid lard a bit at a time, you may not quite need it all. Remeber to dust the pastry with flour before pressing in the Dolly to ass ist removal. There is a definite skill to using the dolly. Proper Melton Mobray pies didn't use any cured meat in them and the pork filling is traditionally 'grey'.

I have a basic guide on how to use the dolly on my site:
http://www.btinternet.com/~happydudevir/piedolly.htm
You can click the thumbnails for larger pictures.

If you have a few sausages made with your traditional mix knocking about you could remove the skins and add a finely chopped onion to the mix and make a 'Country Sausage Pie'... delicious.

You can also use the dolly to make 'Scotch Pies' but fill them with pre-cooked minced lamb. There is some useful discussion and observations re: using the dolly on this thread
http://forum.sausagemaking.org/viewtopic.php?t=738&postdays=0&postorder=asc&highlight=pie+dolly&start=60

Let us know how it goes.

Regards, Paul Kribs

[welsh wizard]

Hi all,

Made some pork pies and well as duck and cranberry last weekend and the filling was A1 but the pastry, although good to eat just stuck to the spring tin and upon opening split the pie!

Anyway this is what I did ; Made the pastry as instructed with flour, lard and a little butter, greased the tin VERY well, and then built the pies. Once cooked I let the pies go almost cold and then poured in the jellied stock, then left the pies in the fridge overnight and then sprung them open. Do you think I should have wrapped the sides of the tin with greasproof paper before starting, and if so do you think the greasproof would then stick to the pie in the same way? I just cant believe that with all that fat swimming around in the pastry the thing got stuck!!!

Anyway, as always advice please.............Cheers Whiz>>>>>>>

[Fricandeau]

I'd go with baking parchment or use a blow lamp to very briefly heat the tin before opening the spring.

[Paul Kribs]

WW

I reckon you should have unsprung (is that a word?) the mold after the pie had cooled, but prior to refrigerating. By chilling down overnight, the fat had set and adhered to the mold. Evn if you had run a spatula around the wall of the mold, you would have still had a problem removing the base.

Regards, Paul Kribs

[BBQer]

I tried the mowbry melton pie recipe. I used the buttered grease-proof paper. Well, I used waxed paper, 'cause I don't know what grease-proof paper is. Even so, it stuck pretty well to the sides of the pie.

The pastry was too hard and dense for my liking. The filling was great.

I had extra, so I made some pastry from a recipe for quiche and wrapped it around "link" shaped bits of filling trying to make sausage rolls.

I didn't think that pastry was quite flaky enough for sausage rolls, so I'll keep experimenting.

[Oddley]

Hi BBQer hot water pastry should be crisp, so that when you make a pork pie you first have the crisp pastry then, bite through the savoury jelly, then finally into the moist meat. if you think your pastry isn't right, give the recipe below a go. I use it to make all my pork and Gala pies.

Hot water pastry

300 g / 12oz plain flour
� tsp salt
yolk 1 standard egg
4 tbs milk
4 tbs water
28 g / 1oz butter
84 g / 3oz lard

method

1: Sift salt and flour into a bowl, make a well in the centre then heat slightly
2: Beat yolk with 1 tablespoon of milk and put into the well
3: Pour rest of milk, water, butter and lard into a saucepan and heat slowly, until lard and butter melt. Bring to a boil.
4: Pour into the well and mix with a wooden spoon until ingredients are thoroughly blended.
5: Turn out onto a floured board and quickly knead until smooth.
6: Put into a bowl or basin over a pan of hot water, cover with a clean tea towel and leave to rest for � an hour.
7: Roll out to � in thickness and use as required.
8: When making pies cut off a � of the pastry first for the lid, keep in the bowl over the hot water until required.

[saucisson]

Great stuff, keep it coming, I want to make a pork pie for a family do weekend after next and need all the tips I can get.

Dave

[Oddley]

Here is a couple of tips

You don't have to hand raise the pie you can use a mould such as a small souffle mould for a single pie or a loose bottom cake tin for a family pie. Make sure they are well buttered and floured.

After baking leave to get cold overnight then add the jelly then refrigerate until really cold. You can then bring it out of the fridge and blowtorch or heat the sides to melt the butter to release the pie. I have found that pork or gala pies improve and are best after one or two days.

[BBQer]

Thanks Oddley.

As to details on pastry. Do you mix it well? Knead it a lot? Or just the minimum to get it together? Or does it matter as to toughness or flakiness of the crust, gluten formation, and all that stuff?

I think too, my crust was too thick.

[Oddley]

You only knead it, to get it smooth, that really only takes a few seconds. It needs to be kept warm or it will go all tough and crack, Instead of smooth and pliable.

[welsh wizard]

Hi all, nice to be back.

I have tried a variety of pies since my last posting and have invested in a couple of silicone muffin trays which pop out my individual pies a treat. I have also invested in a non stick 8" cake liner from Lakeland (�3.99) which again makes the removal of the pie so easy it is brilliant. So to the question, and you know there was going to be one!

I find that no mater how cold I get the pie and how cool I get the jelly when I pour it into the pie the pie pastry becomes soggy - any help out there?

Cheers Whiz...............

[Oddley]

Hi WW
I'm sort of winging it here, so see if any of it makes sense.

The gala pies I make are all made in a bread tin and the pastry comes out nice. The small pies I make are hand raised using Paul's excellent pie dolly. The pastry comes out lovely.

So from this limited experience. The sogginess will probably happen in the cooking as the meat juices escape. So I think that perhaps the silicon molds might be the problem. If you cook in metal some of the fat will escape and fry the pastry on the bottom and sides, for this to happen, a hot oven should be used for the first 10-15 min's, then turned down for the rest of the cooking time. Of course this will not happen in silicon.

Also another idea is to egg wash the inside of the pie pastry, which hopefully will create a water proof barrier.

If any of this helps please post and let us know.

[Paul Kribs]

Am I missing something here? To me, part of the succulence of a pork pie is the crispy texture of the outside of the pastry, combined with the softer inner pastry.. and then, the succulent meat and jelly filling. If it is too wet on the inside, maybe the pastry is a little too thick, or not enough cooking time.. I have not encountered over wet pastry .. yet..

Regards, Paul Kribs

[Oddley]

I agree with you Paul, but everyone to their own. I got the impression from WW's post that the pastry was soggy all the way through.

Perhaps he can clarify it, on that point.

[welsh wizard]

Yep Oddley is correct. Ths pastry is soggy all the way through. What I want is to retain a crisp exterior and have a moist interior (no jokes please). The pie mix I use, especially the game pie mix has little fat so I use a basic sausage mix that I freeze down purely for the addition to game pies.

My individual pies seem to be OK it is the 8" pies that I seem to have the problem with in the soggy way.

Ref the silicone baking moulds, they do produce a crisp exterior but not as crisp as using it in a tin. However OOI they do produce yorkshire puds without using any fat - I know that is a contradiction, but for us who are trying to loose some weight it means I can eat twice as many..........


Cheers WW.............