UK Catering Forum

Traditional Pork Pie

Ingredients

For the jelly
750ml chicken stock
Gelatine sheets
1 large carrot
1 large onion
1 bouquet garni (celery, bay leaf, thyme and parsley)
12 black peppercorns
4 cloves

For the filling
1.2kg de-boned pork shoulder
225g unsmoked bacon
1 tbsp fresh sage, chopped
1.5 tsp ground nutmeg
1.5 tsp ground allspice
salt and freshly ground black pepper to suit

For the pastry
450g AP flour
1 tsp salt
275g butter from fridge, cut into pieces
3 medium free-range eggs and 1 yolk
3 tbsp cold water

Method
1. For the jelly, put all of the jelly ingredients into a large pan, cover with water and bring to the boil. Cover and simmer gently for three hours.
2.Strain through a very fine sieve into a clean pan and boiling until reduced to 600ml. Season to taste and leave to cool.
3. To make the filling, cut the pork and bacon into 1cm cubed pieces. Put half of the pork auarter of the bacon into a food processor and process using the pulse button until coarsely chopped.
4. Scrape into a bowl and stir in the rest of the diced pork, bacon herbs, spices, anchovy essence, one teaspoon of salt and some freshly ground black pepper.
5. Fry a little piece of the mixture in sunflower oil, taste and adjust the seasoning if necessary.
6. To make the pastry, sift the flour and salt into a food processor or mixing bowl. Rub in the butter until the mixture looks like fine breadcrumbs.
7. Beat 2 of the whole eggs with the egg yolk and water and gradually stir into the dry ingredients to make a soft dough. Knead briefly until smooth then cut off one third of the mixture and set it aside for the lid.
8. Roll out the larger piece and use to line the base and sides of a 20cm/8in clip-sided cake tin, leaving the excess pastry overhanging the edges.
9. Preheat the oven to 200C.
10. To assemble the pie, spoon the pork filling into the pastry-lined tin and slightly round the top of the mixture to give the finished pie a nice shape.
11. Beat the remaining egg in a bowl. Brush the edge of the pastry with beaten egg. Roll out the remaining pastry and use to cover the top of the pie.
12. Cut a small hole into the centre of the lid with a small ovenproof pastry cutter, remove the plug of pastry and leave the cutter in place to retain the hole during baking.
13. Brush with more beaten egg and decorate with a twisted rope of pastry and pastry leaves. Brush the top with any remaining beaten egg.
14. Bake the pie in the oven at 200C for 30 minutes, then lower the oven temperature to 180C and continue to cook for a further 1½ hours, loosely covering the pie with a triple-thickness sheet of greaseproof paper once it is nicely browned.
15. Finally, remove the pie from the oven and leave to cool for 2 hours. Next heat the jelly in a saucepan and pour into the pie through the hole in the top. This must be done slowly or it will overflow. There is plenty of room if you take your time due to the meat shrinking.
16. Chill overnight in a fridge.