There is very little in my expat’s fond-memory-bank that says home more than a pork pie. I introduced them to Pia last summer, on our tour of the motherland, and she loved them. That’s why I decided it was high time to make my own – using the finest farm-raised Swedish pork, of course
For the uninitiated, a pork pie is an extraordinary creation. It belongs to the typically (uniquely?) English food group of raised pies: a solid meat filling encased in pastry so thick and crispy that it remains rigid under its own, not inconsiderable weight.
Ten kilos of fatty English goodness
Pork pie, in my opinion, is the King among raised pies: coarse chopped, fatty pork, flavored with mace, allspice, bay and white pepper, baked to a solid mass inside a crunchy, glossy, fat-rich case. The icing on the cake is a good measure of stock, poured into a hole in the pie lid while it is still warm, which sets to a layer of savoury jelly between meat and pastry. If God made pies, they would be pork pies.
It starts with this: good, farm-reared Swedish pork
Eaten cold, with pickles, English mustard and warm English beer, it’s possibly the greatest (and most unhealthy) meal known to man; seriously.
And ends with this
The history of the raised pie spans many hundreds of years. To make one, I found out on Sunday, takes almost as long. But I urge you to persevere. If you have just one thing on your list of must do’s in life, scribble out a trip to Australia and write down “make a pork pie” instead. Here’s how.
PORK PIE
- 500 g pork bones
- 1 pig’s trotter
- 1 onion
- 1 carrot
- 5 stalks of celery
- 5 black peppercorns
- 1kg pork shoulder cut into tiny cubes
- 250g mincedpork belly
- 10 rashers streaky bacon, finely chopped
- 4 sage leaves, finely chopped
- ½ tsp ground mace
- ½ tsp ground white pepper
- 200g butter
- 200 ml water
- 550g flour
- 1,5 tsp salt
- 2 beaten eggs
- 1 beaten egg for glaze
To make the stock put the bones, trotter, onion, carrot, celery and peppercorns in a large pan, cover with water and simmer for one hour. Remove the surface fat, strain and boil to reduce the liquid by about half. Leave to cool to ensure it sets
Melt the butter and water in a pan. Do not boil
Put the flour and salt in a large mixing bowl, make a well in the centre, add two beaten egss and combine with a knife to mix lightly together
Pour in the butter and water and mix to make a dough and knead on a floured surface
Mix the meat and all the seasonings together
Oil a 20cm spring-form cake tin, roll out ¾ of the pastry to about 1cm thickness and line the tin so the pastry comes almost to the top
Fill with the meat mixture and press down firmly
Roll out the remaining pastry to form a lid, brush the edges of the pastry in the tin with a little egg and place the lid in top. Crimp the edges between thumb and forefinger to seal the pie
Cut a 1cm diameter hole in the center of the pie lid
Bake the pie at 180C for 30 minutes, reduce the temperature to 160C and bake for a further 11/4 hours
Remove the sides from the spring-form tin, brush the pie with beaten egg (top and sides) and return to the oven for 15 minutes
Warm up the stock so it liquefies and, using a funnel, pour into the hole in the pie lid until the pie is full with stock
Leave the pie in the fridge overnight so the stock sets and the pie is cold
