Baking Makes Things Better: English Pork Pies

Last Thursday evening Simon and I went to an English Pork Pie workshop that I had booked us at The Gourmet Gannet, a cooking school out in Muriwai. We got taught how to make these cute little pies by Allison Mawer who was a very helpful and patient teacher (and runs a fab food blog Pease Pudding), then we got to have a go ourselves. And, I think the pie class was awesome timing too, as Simon took his English Pork Pies to his friends house the next night and ate them while watching the Royal wedding :)

You can have a go at making your own pies too. You will need:

Pastry:
75g lard
50ml water
225g plain flour, plus extra for dusting
salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 egg, beaten, for brushing

Pork Pie Filling:
500g should of pork, half finely chopped, half minced
3 rashers streaky bacon, finely chopped
½ teaspoon ground allspice
½ teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
salt and freshly ground black pepper, to season
handful of chopped sage

Preheat the oven to 180˚C.
For the pastry, place the lard and water into a small pan and gently heat until the lard has melted. Sift the flour into a large bowl and season with salt and pepper and mix well. Make a well in the flour and pour in the warm lard mixture. Mix well to combine, until the mixture comes together to form a dough. Knead for a few minutes, then form into a ball and set aside.

For the pie filling, place all of the pie filling ingredients into a large bowl and mix well.

On a floured work surface, roll out the pastry to about 3 or 4 millimetres thick. Cut out 12 circles – 6 at 12cm, and 6 at 8cm in diameter. We traced around saucers and used glasses for this. Dust the base of a small jar, or a glass (what we used), or if you’re a fancy pants – a pork pie dolly, with flour. Place the centre of one of the larger pastry circles over the base of the glass and draw the pastry down around the glass to make a cup. You want to be careful here not to pull the pastry down the glass and make it too thin, rather, you just want to fold the pastry over the glass and push out any pleats created by the pastry in the process. Carefully remove the pastry from the glass so you are left with a little pastry cup that can stand on its own.

Roll some pork pie filling into a ball and carefully place into the bottom of the pastry case.

Brush the top inner parts of the case with some of the beaten egg or some water and place one of the smaller pastry circles on the top. Pinch the edges of the pastry together to seal the pie. Brush the top of the pie with the egg wash.

Repeat the process with the remaining 5 pastry circles. Bake in the oven for 35 minutes, until the top of the pie is golden brown.

If you are interested going to a cooking class, The Gourmet Gannet runs a variety of different classes such as making your own cheese, sausages, and even croissants :)