English Pork Pie Redux

double-crust pie, Robbie Feder, savory piesJanuary 15, 2014No comments

Robbie here! After spending a year abroad in London, I wanted to pay homage to my second home across the pond by making an English pie. While I had eaten and enjoyed the English pork pie amongst other delicious pies in London, I was never enamored with the dish since it is eaten cold. Although that is the way that the many English pies are served, I am a hot food kind of guy. So, I decided to take the traditional English pork pie and put my own American twist on it. Instead of serving this pie cold, I served it piping hot. With that in mind, I followed saveurs recipe which you can see below for my meat mixture:

http://www.saveur.com/article/Recipes/English-Pork-Pie

Yet since I would not be serving the pie cold, I completely discarded the directions on making a broth which would later become a gelatinous mixture that helps to firm up the traditionally cold pie.

Furthermore, though I am a carnivore, I wanted to make the pie about more than just the meat alone and give it some nuance while putting my own spin on the dish. In turn, I decided to caramelize some onions, stew some apples in apple cider, and grate cheddar cheese to put on top in addition to making the aforementioned pork mixture from saveur.com.

Hopefully the flavors will meld together as a pie version of pork chops and apple sauce. It’s like peanut butter and jelly: the two things just go well together!

I know the pie might not need it, but I also very excited that there will also be true English mustard, Coleman’s, to accompany my dish. It will knock your socks off with the kick and cure any sinus problems one may have.

Hopefully this will pay homage to the city I have grown to love. For as Samuel Johnson once said, “he who is tired of London is tired of life.”

ApplesStewed ApplesOnionsCaramelized OnionsMeat!

Meat FillingApple Filling

Carmelized Onion FillingCheddar on Top

Pie Pre OvenPie Baked

English Pork Pie Redux

  • Prep time:
  • Cook time:
  • Total time:
  • Yield: 8
  • Difficulty: medium
  • Recipe type: entree

Ingredients:

  • FOR THE PASTRY:
  • 1 cup lard, cubed and chilled
  • 4½ cups flour
  • ½ tsp. kosher salt
  • 1 egg, lightly beaten
  • FOR THE PORK MIXTURE
  • 8 oz. pork shoulder, trimmed and cut into ¼” cubes
  • 8 oz. slab bacon, cut into ¼” cubes
  • 1 ½ tsp. kosher salt, plus more to taste
  • ½ tsp. freshly grated nutmeg
  • ½ tsp. ground mace
  • ½ tsp. ground black pepper
  • ½ tsp. ground white pepper
  • FOR THE STEWED APPLES
  • 2 apples skinned and sliced
  • 1 ½ tsp. kosher salt, plus more to taste
  • ½ tsp. freshly grated nutmeg
  • ½ tsp. ground cinnamon
  • ¼ cup of apple cider
  • FOR THE CARAMELIZED ONIONS
  • 2 large onions sliced
  • 2-3 tsp. olive oil
  • ½ tsp. sugar
  • ½ tsp. salt
  • SLICED SHARP CHEDDAR CHEESE

Directions:

  1. Make the pastry: Rub lard into flour and salt in a bowl until pea-size crumbles form. Add 1 cup cold water; stir until dough forms. Shape into a disk; wrap and chill.
  2. In a bowl, toss together shoulder, bacon, salt, nutmeg, mace, and peppers.
  3. When it comes to caramelizing onions, put the oil in the pan and wait until it is hot. Then, put in the chopped onions, stir for 10 minutes, at which point add salt (I also added a little sugar), then continue to stir, and add water so the onions do not dry out. If that is not sufficient for you, there is a more elaborate explanation at http://www.simplyrecipes.com/recipes/how_to_caramelize_onions/ which I highly recommend you look at for the proper technique for caramelizing onions.
  4. For the stewed apples, cut and skin two granny smith apples, stew them in a pan with apple cider for 5 minutes, then cool and mix with the nut meg and cinnamon.
  5. When the various components of the pie are done, assembly. Start by working the dough into your pie pan. Then, before adding the meat filling, add some flour (or in my case cornbread stuffing) to keep the juices of the meat from leaking through the bottom layer of pastry. Afterwards, proceed to spread out the stewed apple mixture, followed by the caramelized onions on top, and finished with slices of sharp cheddar cheese before it is enclosed with the top layer of pastry.
  6. For baking, put the pie in the oven at 350 F for 30 minutes, followed by 90 minutes at 3235 F. Then, take the pie out of the oven and brush it with egg before putting it back in the oven for 25-30 minutes.
  7. Lastly, let the pie cool and serve with English mustard on the side if you would like.

Published on by

Tagged: , ,

Leave a Reply