Classic British Pork Pies
How to make 4 delicious, classic British pork pies, easy step by step instructions, from start to finish.
Ingredients
Method
- Pastry ingredients:
- 300g / 11oz Plain or All-purpose flour
- 70g / 2½oz Lard or solid vegetable fat
- 70g / 2½oz Butter (unsalted)
- 130g / 130mls Water
- 6g / ¾tsp Salt
- Pork Filling ingredients:
- 400g / 14oz Minced / Ground Pork (20% fat)
- 6g / ¾tsp Salt
- 2g / 1tsp Dried Sage
- 2g / 1tsp Dried Thyme
- 1g / ½tsp Ground Mace
- 5g / ¼tsp White pepper
- Freshly Ground Nutmeg
- Gelatine:
- 1 Small Gelatine leaf
- Half of a chicken stock cube
- 100g / 100mls of boiling water
- Making the hot water crust pastry:
- Mix the salt and flour together, form a well in the centre.
- Place the water on a medium to low heat, add the butter and lard to the pan, bring to a simmer.
- Soon as the fats have melted, pour the hot liquid onto the flour in the bowl, and bring it all together.
- Tip the contents of the bowl out onto a non-floured surface.
- Gently knead the dough until it all comes together.
- Flatten out the pastry.
- Cover in plastic wrap or food bags, and place in the fridge for at least 30 minutes before using.
- Making the pork filling:
- Add all of the pork filling ingredients into a food processor, and pulse the until everything is combined, don’t over mix, this should only take approximately 15 seconds.
- Carefully remove it from the machine, and divide the processed pork into 4 pieces, forming each piece into a meat-ball, set it aside for now.
- Cut 4 pieces of the pastry off at 110g / 4oz each and form them into balls.
- Place each ball into 4 greased pie/pudding moulds, and form the pastry into the shape of the moulds, see the video for my moulds and method.
- Leave a lip of pastry stick out of the top of each mould.
- Roll out the remaining pastry to 3mls / ⅛” thick, and using a cutter the same size as the top of your moulds, cut out 4 pie lids, then cut a small ½” hole in the centre of each lid, see video for example, this is to add the gelatine liquid later.
- Make up your egg wash, using 1 small egg and a dash of milk, whisk until smooth and runny.
- At this point, preheat your oven to, 180°C / 355°F / Gas mark 4.
- Place a meatball in each of the moulds, gently pressing down, expelling any trapped air.
- Brush egg wash all around the edge of the pastry base.
- Place the lid on the top of the pie base, and gently press it down, using your thumbs and forefingers, neatly crimp the 2 pastries together.
- Give each pie a good coat of the egg wash, try not to get any egg wash in between the pastry and the tin, or it will stick as it bakes.
- Place all 4 pies on a baking tray.
- Get the tray in middle of the preheated oven, and use the bottom element, if you have one.
- Now set your timer for 45 minutes.
- Once the time is up, move these gorgeous pies onto a wire rack, and allow them to settle still in their tin, for 10 minutes.
- If you are adding the gelatine, mix all 3 ingredients together and give it a good stir to make sure the gelatine leaf has melted.
- Remove the pies from the tins, and fill each one with the jelly liquid through the jelly hole that was cut in earlier, do this while the liquid is still hot.
- Once they have cooled, get them into the fridge until the gelatine has set, Approx. 2 hours.
- Enjoy.
Equipment & products used in my kitchen and videos
