FLOWER POT KITCHEN: PORK PIE BRITISH PIE WEEK

9 Mar 2022

PORK PIE BRITISH PIE WEEK

What better pie than a traditional hot water crust pork pie to start off British Pie Week, well don’t tell the other pies but their all my favourite!

Glorious hot water roasted crackling lard pork pie, a beautiful tasting traditional pork pie that every mouthful sings of great times shared with family and friends. Our own Organic raised loved and rootling pork seasoned with fresh sage, thyme and bay from the garden and hint of old fashioned mace. Home made jelly or Not! and a gorgeous hot water crust made with our own roast crackling rendered down lard this pie is a show stopper. For me this is a beautiful way to celebrate Christmas and New Years and I love to make these as gifts for friends and family to enjoy over the festive season, love in every bite.

A Not Jellied Pork Pie !

To Jelly or not to Jelly is the question!

Cooking these pie’s for family and friends as gifts at Christmas is a lovely time for me where I get to be in the kitchen for most of the day, I start by getting the jelly cooking first, if you are into jelly! I’m not, my family are and through food law I respect that jelly is a important honest historic part of a pork pie and as I do nose to tail cooking this is a tradition I have loved learning, but if like me your not in to jelly just leave it out, it’s personal just go with it, however I f you are into jelly like so many of my London family then you will need to start this cooking day with the jelly, this is so that later we can jelly the cooked pork pie and leave to set overnight in the fridge ready for the excitement of sharing, giving and eating with everyone the next day. Traditionally this pie would take 2-3 days to make, first day you make the pie, second day jelly the pies and leave to set overnight ready to sell the next day.

Ingredients

(serves 6-8)

Hot Water Crust Pastry

600g strong plain flour

2 beaten eggs

7g Himalayan sea salt

5g white pepper

1 tsp fresh chopped thyme

110g lard

110g butter

240ml water

The Pork Pie

800g pork shoulder diced

200g belly pork minced

200g bacon minced

10 sage leaves finely chopped

4 sprigs thyme chopped

1/2 tsp mace

1/4 tsp cayenne pepper

1 tsp Himalayan sea salt

1 tsp black pepper

The Jelly

1 pork hock or 2 trotters

1 ltr water

1 onion skin on halved

1 carrot rough chopped

1/2 stick celery

1 garlic clove bashed

8 peppercorns

1 bay leaf

1 tsp mustard powder

1 pinch celery salt

2 leaves gelatine (optional)

First get the jelly underway in a pressure cooker for 1/12 hrs or casserole dish for 3-4 hrs place all the ingredients in your pan, bring to a simmer and place on the lid, leave to cook for the time needed for your cooking vessel. Once cooked remove the trotters or pork hock, the latter makes a wonderful dinner with some buttery vinegar mashed potatoes and pease pudding or a suet bacon and onion pudding roll.

Now to check if your pork jelly will set without the need for gelatine, which it should once cooled, place a saucer in the freezer for at least 30 minutes, take a tablespoon on the Cooke jelly stock and place on the cold saucer on your work top, leave for two minutes and assess the thickness of the set cooled jelly. If too running then add the gelatine leaves by soaking in water to soften for 5 minutes and then stirring in off the heat. Leave your jelly to one side while you bake the pork pie.

Next make the pork pie filling mix all the ingredients together and reserve to one side to infuse their flavours while you make the hot water crust pastry.

To make the hot water crust is really simple place the lard, butter and water in a saucepan and melt without allowing a simmer, in a large mixing bowl place the flour, salt and ribbon through the beaten eggs, make a well in the centre and pour in the hot lard and butter mix, using a spoon gently bring together until just combined, using your hand knead the mix for a minute until a smooth ish ball is formed. Take 2/3 of the dough and place in your tin pressing the sides up and forming the base, place in your pork pie meat, lay your pastry lid on the top and crimp the edges, I like to take my left hand ready to pinch the pastry from the underneath of the tin lip and pastry, while my right hand will push the top pie crust pastry in to the two pinch fingers, this gives a great crust finish. Make a hole in the centre of the pie to allow steam out and for adding the jelly later and decorate with leaves around the hole.

Place the pork pie in a pre heated oven 200 C for half an hour, then lower the heat to 160 C for one hour, remove the pork pie from the oven and as with these French pie tins they are comprised of 3 pieces held together with clips, remove the two sides of the pie tin carefully, then glaze the whole pie with egg wash and place back in the oven to cook for a further 10-15 minutes. Remove the pie from the oven and allow to cool, to fill with your homemade jelly use a large syringe or tiny funnel and jug and pour the jelly in until it reaches the top of the hole then store in the fridge overnight to set the jelly, then your good to go, enjoy this glorious pork pie it is a outstanding pie.

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LIFE MY PASSION

Welcome to my daily life of cooking, one winters day many years ago my family and I were all inspired by a back to back rainy day of River Cottage this got us to stop talking about and start actually doing, suddenly three weeks later eight vegetable beds were dug, greenhouse erected and our first vegetables were propagating, this was the start to raising and growing our own food, our fabulous son Oscar changed our path in life which lead us to sell our small thriving restaurant of 10 yrs and to start our new life (Terrifying!) a life of the self sufficient in touch with nature and seasons, taking a step back and looking forward to a slower change of pace and making the most of every moment.

My passion for cooking was stronger than ever and having time at home with Oscar I found I had a new direction and I was no longer striving for perfection, I was suddenly very passionate for the enjoyment of the other side of food, something I had not realised, being the Chef/Cook and every other duty of your own small restaurant made me see that I never actually took time to cook what I wanted!

So there I was muddy boots and hands digging deep in more than one sense and I found myself transported back in time to where everyone grew some of their own food, it is a wonderful world with a real sense of achievement and loss, Slugs Snails and Caterpillars! But thats another story! Childhood memories of summers when I lived with my grand parents reminded me of so much that I had learnt about the make do and mend generation that I had forgotten.

Now as a family we love our free wild food days where we gather what nature has provided, have gone from being mini mini garden urban small holders, who did raised pigs at home because we could not wait to find land and supporting ourselves from our garden to now owning a very small farm that allows us to grow more vegetables for the whole of our family and neighbours, raise our own gorgeous Gloucestershire Old Spot pigs, (Sausages!) and pets! Dorset Down sheep, chickens for eggs and pet goats! Suddenly having large quantities of produce started to wake up the Cook in me!

The Cook was awake that part of me that wants to cook for the masses and I found myself setting up Flowerpot Kitchen, a Farmers Market Stall, I wanted to use our honest raised meats and make old fashioned pork pies, rabbit pies and game pies from the local game keeper along with old fashioned techniques and the best hot water crust pastry. This in turn grew to a small cottage industry from home weekly supplying three farm shops and a deli along with also attending three farmers markets A few years later there came a time when my son Oscar's health changed and it was an easy decision to stop.

I still hold the occasional pop up 40 seater restaurant or gourmet lunch which we do for local charities for the love of sharing food and to remind that Cook in me why I love our go slower self sufficient life!

So here I am sitting amoung the vegetables watching the chickens loving that every season nature teaches me something new and that nature is in charge! She has taught me to just go with it and grow. Give it a try from a tray of salad on your windowsill to a few tomato plants it all counts.