Have a really good recipe but it's quite long! I found it on the internet.
Traditional pie with hot water crust.
- Jellied stock
- Filling
- Pastry
- Assembly
- Cooking
- There are several stages to building one…
Addition of stock
- Cooling
- Eating
The following instructions will give the what’s and where necessary the why’s for each of the stages – Enough for 2 pies
- Jellied Stock
1 split pig’s trotter
2lb pork bones
rind from 2lb belly pork
1 leek
1 onion
1 large carrot
5 crushed juniper berries
1 blade mace
12 peppercorns
2 fresh bay leaves
Salt to taste
Process
Roughly chop the veggies. Add all the ingredients to a large stock pan – except the salt. Cover with water, bring to the boil, cover and simmer gently for 3 hours.
After 3 hours, remove from the heat, strain through a fine sieve, return to the heat and reduce to one pint.
When the stock has reduced to the final concentration, taste and add salt to taste.
Set the stock aside to cool.
- Filling
1kg pork belly with rind (use rind and any bones for the stock)
200g smoked bacon
2 tsp anchovy essence or 3-4 chopped anchovy fillets
1 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp ground mace
1 tsp nutmeg
½ tsp ground white pepper
5 juniper berries – finely chopped
1tbs chopped fresh sage
Salt to taste (don’t forget that the bacon already has salt, so you’ll need very little.)
Aim
The aim here is to create a filling comprised of meat chunks and meat paste – the paste helps to fill the gaps to ensure a solidly filled pie.
Process
Use a food processor to process half of the pork and half of the bacon until the mixture becomes a coarse paste.
Chop the remaining meat into ½ “ cubes. Mix the chopped and processed meat with all of the remaining ingredients. – You’ll need to get your hands in here to give the mixture a good squidge.
Fry up a small piece of the mixture to test for seasoning. Don’t forget that your spices may have a different pungency to mine, so don’t be afraid to adjust to your taste. However, the mixture should not taste specifically of any one spice – take special care not to use too much pepper. Too much pepper is a common pork pie mistake.
Once the filling is ready, set aside in the fridge for later.
Point of interest – As well as adding flavour, the anchovy essence helps to keep the pork a lovely pink colour – stopping it from turning grey when it cooks.
- Pastry
1 kg flour
400mls milk and water
250g lard
1 tsp salt
Notes
Hot water pastry is easy to make, can be handled brutally and is very forgiving. It forms a soft pliable dough that feels very silky. It’s special property is that it is mouldable, and will form a case that will hold it’s shape before cooking, without a mould. Take care not to let the mixture get too cold, as it will crack when you shape it.
This mixture gives you too much, but allows for screw ups, different shape moulds and varying filling volumes.
Process
Bring the lard and liquid to the boil, remove from the heat.
Add the flour and stir. The mixture will be lumpy and floury.
Get your hands in bring the dough together, kneading until smooth.
- Assembly
Meat mixture
Paste
Grease proof paper
String
Dredging flour
Lard
4lb kilner jar or similar for shaping case – 4 ½” in diameter
Notes
The aim is to mould a lump of pastry around a jar to form a case, leave it cool a little so it hold’s it’s shape, stuff, top and bake. The reality was slightly different because the case took ages to cool enough to hold its shape. Also, I ended up rolling the pastry first before moulding to help ensure an even thickness, which is difficult if you mould the pastry blob by hand.
Process
You have enough mixture for two pies – For ease, assemble one at a time.
Halve the mixture, and set half aside in a warm place for later.
Cut ¼ off the remaining paste and keep warm. This will be used later to form the lid.
Take the jar, grease with lard and cover in flour. Form the paste into a round ball, roll out into a circle, 3/8” thick. Dredge this circle very well – otherwise you will not get the paste off the mould later.
Carefully lift the pastry and drape over the base of the jar. Use your hands to form the circle into a case around the jar – work quickly and firmly, but don’t be afraid – the paste is tolerant and will take remoulding if you screw up. You will end up with a smooth surface.
Watch point – Take care when working on the corner between the base and the sides – there is a risk of making this area too thin.
Now trim the edge, to leave a side of about 3 ½ - 4”. Use a pastry cutter, pizza cutter or knife to do this.
In theory, the paste should be left to cool a little, to firm up – It should then hold it’s shape independently. I found that this seemed to take forever and I got bored waiting. Whenever I removed the case, it just collapsed and annoyed me
Instead, I gently tied a double thickness of greaseproof paper around the case to help it hold it’s shape. It is important to be very gentle, otherwise the case won’t slide off the jar. This is also where you discover if you floured the paste well enough after rolling!!
Now invert the jar, and hopefully the case will slide off – probably with a little encouragement.
Roll out the remaining ¼ that you cut off earlier on, into a 3/8” thick round the same diameter as the pie. Cut out a hole in this using a small metal cutter.
Lay the top onto the pie, and pinch the edges together firmly, into a pretty pattern!! Now return the cutter to the hole in the top – this will help keep the hole shape during cooking
Stand back and admire your work. Difficult bit over, and not that difficult after all.
5) Cooking
Preheat your oven to 200 C (180 in a fan oven). Place the pie on a baking tray and bake for ½ hour
Reduce the heat to 180 C (160 in fan oven) and cook for a further 1 ½ hours.
-
Adding Jelly
Using a funnel, pour the liquid jelly into the hole in the top, until the pie is full – the jelly will fill all the spaces left by the shrinking filling. You will probably need to make several additions of jelly, as the liquid settles.
-
Cooling
Leave the pie in a cool place to cool overnight – the jelly will take ages to set, so don’t be tempted to open up early (like me), as you will end up with a flood over the kitchen counter.
I seem to remember that the pastry recipe wasn't the best - worth googling for another one.
I've used an inverted cake tin as a mould, and rolled the pastry out in between 2 sheets of cling film.
It's worth the effort and tastes really good.