How to Make an Easy Traditional British Pork Pie

[Music] so the first step in preparing a traditional pork pie is to prep the meat now I'm using a mixture of 500 grams of pork belly and 500 grams of pork shoulder and this should be enough filling for me to make 3 pies that are based on the size of my tins and obviously you're going to need to adjust the quantities of meat depending on the size of the pies that you're going to be making now you could mince the pork if you want to but I'm actually going to cut this by hand into small dice and this should give me more of an artisan pie and improve the overall texture of the pie now once I've got all of my meat cut up and put into a bowl it's time to season it and I'm going to be using some fresh thyme leaves and some freshly ground black pepper but feel free to get creative and use any flavors that you want to pop in there too once that's done wrap the bowl tightly with cling film and we're gonna pop that in the fridge overnight just to let all of the flavors get to know each other so it's now the next day and I'm gonna crack on with a hot water cross pastry in a pan on the hob I have melted 175 grams of butter and 10 grams of salt in 300 grams of water brought it up to a simmer and added that to 675 grams of flour which has a 13% protein content remember this is going to be hot when you first add the liquid so start by mixing it up with a spoon or a spatula and then you can get your hands involved traditionally a lard would have been used in the pastry but I'm just not a big fan but if you want to use it then please feel free just swap the 175 grams of butter for 175 grams of lard now this dough doesn't need to be worked too much but it is important to bring everything together well and achieve a nice smooth surface on the dough it should take somewhere between I don't know two and a half to five minutes of working then it's time to chill the dough down in the fridge for an hour or so we want to bring it down to it - where is easy to work with an easy to roll out and it's important that when we put this in the fridge it's completely covered so the dry conditions in the fridge don't dry out the surface of the dough the dough's been resting in the fridge for about an hour and now we can crack on with rolling out the dough cut off enough dough to make the main case for the pie but make sure to cover the rest up again in the plastic bag just to stop it drying out when I'm working with pastry or bread dough I really try hard not to add any additional flour unless it's absolutely necessary but if you find it easier then please go ahead and give the worktop a little dusting of flour before rolling out Paul pies tend to have quite a thick crust so I'm gonna roll this out about four or five millimeters and of course you can check that against the size of your pastry case as you're rolling it out once that's done carefully pick the pastry up and lower it gently into the case use your fingers and work around the inside to manipulate the dough into an even covering don't push it too thin and then just leave the excess hanging over the top now I'm gonna season the meat with so I didn't do it yesterday because I didn't want to salt it and leave it sitting in the fridge for 12 to 24 hours now I'm gonna use another case to judge the right amount of pork and then I'll add the salt in a separate bowl just so it's easier to work through the pork pop that straight into the pastry case and give it a gentle push down just to fill the pastry cut off another piece of dough for the lid and roll that out again to about four or five millimeters trim off any excess by using another case as a guide and gently running a knife around the outside rather than cutting across into the pastry use some kind of improvised cutter to remove a small circle a straw works really well for this this is gonna stop the hole closing up and allow the steam to escape keeping the pie crust nice and firm as it cooks they have the edge of the lid with some water using a spray bottle or a brush and pop the lid on to the top pushing the pastry lid down on to the meat filling and pinching it to the outside of the pastry case any leftover pastry can be reused so pop that back in the bag as well I'm certainly no master pie crimper but the aim of the game here is to make sure that the lid and the case are well sealed together and it kind of looks pretty quick egg wash to the top of the pie and then the springform can be removed extremely gently the base of the springform tin can be left on and removed after cooking and then we're just going to apply the same egg wash to the sides of the pie and we're ready to cook I've preheated my oven to 150 degrees Celsius the oven set on bake function that's got no fan running and this pie is going to cook somewhere in the region for an hour and thirty minutes to two hours I want to achieve a nice golden color on the outside and make sure that the center of the pie is well cooked as well and the meat has all stop bubbling over through the steam hole now cooking times are gonna vary depending on the oven so you're going to need to keep checking your pie as you go along as soon as the pies cooked and has come out of the oven you're gonna need to let that cool for at least 45 minutes so the meat can shrink down a little before we add the final stock I've made my own gelatinous pork stock out of ham hocks and I'll leave the recipe for that in the description but you could use a good quality fresh store-bought chicken stock and use a leaf or gelatine or two just to help that set up now the pie has cooled down the meat mixture has shrunk down a little bit we've got a nice cavity around the outside of the pie and I'm going to inject the warm stock into the side of the pie until it overflows out of the top now I'm using a syringe but you could try to use a small funnel and just pop it in the hole at the top of the pie now it's got to go into the fridge to allow that stock to set and 24 hours will do that but 48 is even better thank you very much for watching I will see you again very soon stay tuned

Channel: Culinary Exploration

Views: 520,045

Keywords: easy homemade traditional pork pie, hand made pork pie, british pork pie recipe, melton mowbray pork pie, hand raised pork pie, easy pork pie recipe, pork pie using hot water crust pastry, pork pie recipe UK, modern british pork pie recipe, artisan pork pie recipe

Id: _xZX4Q437GM

Length: 6min 47sec (407 seconds)

Published: Sat May 02 2020