Firstly, I've got some apologies to make.
To start with, I'm sorry about the title. Its corny and barely relevant to the content, but temptation got the better of me. Next, I'm sorry about the time lag between posts. This is purely down to morbid lethargy on my part, but hopefully I can make it better with the news that my last post "Baking Days" will be quoted as a testimonial in "Fork Magazine" as part of Aiden Chapman’s ongoing self-promotion. When I have the link I will post it on this blog. My last apology is that there will be a significant gap until the next post. Let me explain.
For my next post I intend to provide the definitive guide to Dorchester's take away menu. You might think this is a small task, but I will assure you to the contrary. The folk of Dorset love and cherish their food, and as a young, impoverished, public sector worker, I may well lack the money and time to eat out for lunch every day. I will try to keep the blog ticking over with small, punchy posts while I'm compiling this latest effort, but please bear with me.
Ok, that’s the admin out of the way and the loose ends tied up. This latest post is about my last project, the pork pie. I hope you enjoy it and as ever tell me what you think, I apologize to vegetarian readers, and make sure you forward my blog onto all your friends, colleagues, family, and any strangers you think might be interested.
Whether you relish its flavoursome jelly, or disregard the portly pastry, the pork pie has been an integral part of British cultural cuisine for centuries, so after I came across a recipe for traditional hot crust pastry pork pie how could I resist? If you aren't convinced a brief visit to Google might sway you. The two capitals of modern pork pie production today are Melton Mowbury, just outside of Leicester and Yorkshire. The former has had their method of making hand raised hot crust pastry protected by the EU, in the same way that champagne cannot be called by that name if it is not produced in that region, in a specific way. So next time you attend a wedding, birthday party or 50th wedding anniversary, and the bubbly gets flowing, think about this. In the eyes of the EU, the Melton Mowbury pork pie is just as worthy of your honour and respect. In fact in this vein, the Pork Pie Appreciation Society, who meet every week in the Old Bridge Inn, Yorkshire, have reported couples shirking their wedding cakes for tiers of pork pies!
This is part of a greater movement though, because not all of the pork pie's support is restricted to these extremes. Both Melton Mowbury and Yorkshire have clubs devoted to monitoring and rating the standard of pies from all around the country. Every year there is a national festival, where the best of the best are sampled, according to strict etiquette, and awarded based on their quality. This is taken very seriously, and if you expected regional bias toward the two centers, consider this; the current champion is Scottish. The tests are completely unbiased. The support group that exists in the North for this edible national symbol is obviously immense and it is good to see people bonded together by what started, two centuries back, as a convenient snack for fox hunters.
The manufacturing process is very interesting also. Essentially it falls into three fundamental parts of the pie; the stock, the meat and the crust. The stock must include pork trotters, split open, to release gelatin, so that when it is added to the pie, it will set into the jelly that is such a point of contention. Surely pork pie jelly must have been the forerunner to the love it/hate it marmite dilemma that we are everyday faced with now. In any case pork bones and trotters are boiled in water with a few spices, if so wished, for about three hours then the liquid is strained and reduced to a quarter of its volume. What the judges would be looking for here is a jelly that is firm, flavoursome and plenty of it. There should be a good layer within the pie. I found it best if you waited for the jelly to set entirely, scooped off the layer of rendered fat (perhaps for roast potatoes on Sunday), re-heated to its liquid form, then poured it into the pie, as I will come to later.
Next comes the meat filling, and again there is significant room for your own preferences. In Yorkshire they tend to go for more cured meats, preferring the hamminess of bacon, mixed with both lean and fatty pork. In Mowbury, however, the pie filling will typically have a grey-er colour, as the preference there is towards uncured meats. So play with the amounts of bacon, lean and fatty meat until you have found your own favorite. Texture counts too, so you might prefer to leave hunks of lean meat and mince the other two finely , as I did, or mince the lot, or have smaller chunks of all three. The official guidelines point towards the pie having full flavour, with plenty of seasoning, and a succulent moistness without being soggy. To prepare the meat, it is simply fried, ground up as desired, and mixed.
Thirdly, the pastry is where I found myself most out of my comfort zone. For me pastry is butter and flour, and requires delicate handling, with cool temperatures. Here there is none of that. A block of lard is melted into some water and left to boil. To this water and salt is added until a smooth dough ball is formed. This is then turned out onto a floured surface and kneaded before being rolled, bashed, pressed and all-round persuaded to fit into a tin. The pie shape is formed, the filling added and the top glazed. A hole the size of a pencil is left, while the pie is baked for about 1 1/2 hours. This is a concoction you can be rough with. There are no fiddly layers or worries about centigrade, what matters is the right amount of flour and that you don't let your pie look too much like its already been chewed by the dog. The judges want the right hot-crust "snap" and the a pastry that looks and is fairly robust. It was originally eaten on the move, and this heritage is preserved in the want for a hardy, prod proof shell.
Once baked the pie is left to cool for two to three hours and then the stock is poured in though the pencil sized hole in the top. The stock will later set as jelly where the filling has left gaps.
Now for my attempt. I went for big chunks of lean pork, and mined up bacon and belly pork and was pleased by my attempt at the pastry. The crisp snap that is so singular to the hot crust was clearly evident, and the thickness too was enough to stand up to a bit of abuse, but not enough to become cloying in the mouth. I would say that my filling could have done with more flavour, moisture and jelly, but as a first attempt I was very pleased. It went down exceedingly well with a little homemade apple chutney, embracing that long loved pairing of sweetness with the salty pork. I’ve pictured the result below so you can inspect it yourself.
This one however really took some time. As you can tell from the cooking times, things are done by the hour, not the minute and you really need to set aside an entire day. But on the other hand, the whole notion of the pork pie is bound up with time isn’t it? Its an edible of tradition, a throwback to the medieval banquet pies that pop up in Arthurian tales, but it has stuck stubbornly to its ways in modern times. No matter how supermarkets try to rip it off the pork pie will always have a dedicated support network to preserve it for future generations. Nothing like it is produced elsewhere in the world as well, so in that way, the pork pie is a timeless feature of British food. It’s not posh or fancy, just good hearty fare.
As ever, I hope I’ve informed and entertained you for a few minutes. Thank you for taking the time to read r3review and I’ll get the next blog out as soon as I can.
