Pork Pies

There is nothing more satisfying than eating your own pork pie with a golden crisp crust and good quality well seasoned pork.

Try this and experience.

You will need a pie dolly to get the authentic product but a jam jar covered in oiled cling film can also be used.

Ingredients

Pie Filling

• 1kg Good quality pork shoulder (enough for 2 pies)
• 1 teaspoon freshly chopped sage
• Salt and pepper to taste.

Pasty

• Lard
• Plain Flour
• Salt

Method

1. Making the hot water crust pastry

Heat the water in a pan. Melt the lard into the water as it heats up. Boil for a very minimal amount of time (it doesn't matter really very much if you don't boil but you do seem to get a better mixture if you do).

Mix the four, salt and pepper in a bowl.

Pour the hot water/lard mix into the flour and initially mix with a wooden spoon but as soon as you can get in with your hands and mix thoroughly.  Then lightly hand Knead until it all comes together.  Col down in a fridge until it is just workable.  From experimentation I have discovered that it is actually better to eave in the fridge overnight until it is rock had and to take out of the fridge about an hour or two before you need it.  This way the pastry has more body and will stay up right on the dolly.  If you try raising warm pastry it just falls off the dolly.

2. For the filling take half the pork and had cut into 5mm (or less) pieces as this give the pie some decent meaty chunks and some texture. The remaining pork run through a mincer with a medium blade. This provides a nice coarse past to bind the filling.  Combine the small chunks with the finer ground meat and mix. Season with sage, salt and pepper to taste and mix by hand. Test by frying a small piece of the filling and taste - adjust seasoning until right.

3. Split pastry into two equal halves.  Split each half into two - one for the base and one for the top. Rule of thumb is the top takes about one third the pastry of the base. Roll your pastry out for the base into a round about 3mm thick. Roll the pastry for the top a little thinner and big enough to cover the top of the pie - you can measure against the dolly to see if you are about right, but it does need to be a little larger than the dolly to allow for the spreading of the base and the crimping of the top to the bottom.

4. Form the base around the dolly - suggest using youtube for some instruction in this.

5. Once the base if formed throw the mixture into the base and crimp the top on.

6. Make the second pie as above.

7. If you were going to add jelly then do so at this stage - I do not ad it myslef.

8. Place into pre-heated oven at 180C for 45mins.