Perfect Pork Pie - Part Four

I gave one of the first batch of pies to a mate. He loved it, and told another dude about it. A few days later I was out with this other dude, who said he would pay a good bottle of wine for one of these pies. So I made another batch and gave him one (and first friend got another one). And they both got a little jar of pseudo-Branston pickle that I made. Got a text from other dude today, 'wow what a pie! D fucking licious!'.

I'm off to stay with some buddies in the sticks this weekend, so naturally, pies will be required. I've improved the production technique since the first batch. The jam jar is gone, replaced by a small, slightly tapered bistro glass.

Pack it with the meat mixture:



Then smear the outside with flour and raise the pastry round it:



Finally, use the upturned glass to cut the pastry lids:



This is just wonderful, because it means everything fits together nicely. The block of meat shrinks during cooking, leaving a goodly gap for the jelly to flow into. Oh, and I've started putting a few blobs of pastry on top of the meat before putting the lid on. These act as spacers, and make sure there's a gap between the top of the meat and the lid - again, for the purpose of good jelly flow.

Here's what this batch looks like:



Not a great photo, actually - they're much better-looking in the flesh. Off to pump them full of jelly now.