Pork Pie Heaven

This is the beautiful Pork Pie I made.

It was very ruff around the edges but it tasted wonderful. 

I used a Lakeland Pork Pie tin to cook it, and a number of different recipes combined. The tin itself comes with a recipe inside, and I used this as a quality reference, as it was developed to fit the tin. 

Using traditional hot-water pastry, bacon, cured pork and quails eggs to finish it off. 

Instead of using traditional supermarket bacon, I went to a very good local butcher and told him what I wanted to make, he was then able to recommend cuts and his own personally cured pork. 

I highly recommend you do the same if you want to create a traditional (pink inside) pork pie. 

I made mine with a friend, hence the 'T' and 'P' to mark our own work - immature but fun.

Below is the uncooked pie. 

Ingredients

For the Pie Filling

• Thick Cut bacon
• Cured Pork (available from good butchers) 
• Fresh finely chopped herbs (sage, thyme and rosemary work very well, but anything you are growing is good)
• 4 Hard boiled quail eggs (or two small eggs)
• Lots of salt and pepper
• Nutmeg
• Gelatine 
• Pork or Chicken Stock (homemade or good quality shop bought)

For the Hot-Water Pastry

• Lard
• Plain flour
• Hot Water
• 1 egg
• Salt and Pepper

1. Put all the meat in a food processor and blitz until more combined but not throughly chopped.
2. Add finely chopped herbs and seasoning, and lightly blitz again.
3. Boil eggs and allow to cool before peeling.
4. Mix the pastry and after it has cooled a little (it must stay warm to be workable! This is very important!!!) and is more malleable and less floppy line the tin with 2/3 of it, reserving a 1/3 to make the lid.
5. Fill the pastry lined tin with 1/4 of meat in the bottom.
6. Add the eggs spaced equally across the bottom of the tin. Then stuff the remaining pork mix over and around the eggs so they are covered with a flat top of meat.
7. Add the lid of pastry and pinch it shut against the tin lining pastry.
8. Poke a hole in the lid to allow the stock to be poured in after cooking.
9. Cook pie.
10. Cool.
11. Mix stock and gelatine and pour through the hole.  Refrigerate.
12. Remove from tin, slice (hopefully to show the lovely egg inside) and enjoy!

For a more detailed idea of method have a look at Pease Pudding.