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Pork Pies
Pork pies are generally made of the trimmings taken from a hog when it is cut up. Make and shape the pies according to the directions given in the following recipe, and remember that the pies must be moulded while the paste is warm, and that they are much more easily made with a mould than without one. As a mould is not always at hand, those who are not particularly experienced in the work (and it requires skill) may mould the pie round a jelly-pot or bottle, which has been made warm by being immersed for some time in warm water. Cut the meat into pieces the size of a small nut, and keep the lean and fat separate. Season the whole with pepper and salt, half a dozen young sage-leaves finely shredded; or a tea-spoonful of dried and powdered sage, one ounce of salt, two and a quarter ounces of pepper, and a pinch of cayenne, may be allowed for a pie containing three pounds of meat. Pack the fat and lean closely into the pie in alternate layers until it is filled. Put on the cover, press and pinch the edges, and ornament according to taste. Brush over with well-beaten egg, and bake in a slow oven, as the meat is solid and requires to be cooked through. Neither water nor bone should be put into pork pies, and the outside pieces will be hard unless they are cut small and pressed closely together. The bones and trimmings of the pork may be stewed to make gravy, which should be boiled until it will jelly when cold, and when this has been nicely flavoured, a little may be poured into the pie after it is baked, through an opening made in the top. When pies are made small they require a quicker oven than large ones. Time to bake, about two hours for a pie containing three pounds. Probable cost, 3s. (See also RAISED PIES.)
This entry assumes you have already read the raised-crust paste recipe that follows it in the book; what it supplies is the filling, the seasoning and the moulding method. Two things in the original text need attention before you start: the pepper quantity, and the oven.
- The pepper figure is wrongTwo and a quarter ounces of pepper to three pounds of meat is roughly nine tablespoons and would be inedible; it is most likely a misprint, perhaps for drachms or for a quarter-ounce, though the intended figure cannot be recovered. The salt figure, one ounce to three pounds, is sound at about 2 per cent by weight. Season to around 1 to 2 teaspoons of ground black pepper for a three-pound filling and taste a fried scrap before you fill the pie.
- Warm paste, and work fastThis is hot-water crust: the lard-and-water paste is pliable only while hot and turns short and cracky as it cools. Mould it the moment it is workable, keep the reserved lid portion covered in a warm place, and do not chill the dough at any stage.
- Moulding round a jarThe bottle or jelly-pot method still works. Warm the vessel, flour or oil its outside, press the paste up the sides to an even thickness of about a quarter-inch, let it firm for fifteen minutes, then twist the vessel free. A loose-bottomed 6-inch cake tin or a wide straight-sided jar is the easiest modern stand-in for a pork-pie mould.
- "A slow oven"Around 300 to 325F. One common modern approach is to start the pie hotter, around 425F for 20 minutes, to set and colour the crust, then drop to 325F for the remainder. The book's point stands either way: the filling is dense and needs long, gentle heat to cook through.
- Cook to temperature, not to the clockTwo hours for a three-pound pie is a reasonable guide, but pork must reach 160F/71C at the centre of the filling. Take a probe reading through the steam hole rather than trusting the time, and cover the top with foil if it browns before the centre is done.
- Cut the meat by handPieces the size of a small nut means roughly half-inch dice, and the instruction to keep lean and fat separate matters: something in the order of two parts lean shoulder to one part back fat or belly is a commonly recommended proportion, though the recipe gives none. Minced pork packs too tightly and steams into a solid grey block.
- No water, no boneThe filling releases plenty of its own liquid, and added water makes the base soggy and the crust collapse. The jelly goes in afterwards.
- The jellySimmer trimmings, bones and a pig's trotter for three to four hours, strain, reduce until a chilled spoonful sets firm, then season well. Pour it warm through the vent hole only once the pie is nearly cold, or it will run straight out; refrigerate to set.
- Yield and costA three-pound filling in a hot-water crust makes a pie for eight to ten as a cold cut. The "probable cost, 3s." is Victorian shorthand for a household budget line and has no modern equivalent.
Pork pies belong to the thrift end of the pig-killing year: as the entry says outright, they are made from the trimmings left after a hog is cut up, the pieces too small or awkward for roasting or curing. The hot-water crust that holds them was originally as much container as pastry, a stiff self-supporting case that let a pie be carried to market, to the harvest field, or down a mine, and that sealed the meat under a layer of set jelly which kept air off it. Melton Mowbray in Leicestershire is generally credited with turning the farmhouse version into a commercial trade in the nineteenth century, on the back of the Stilton dairies' whey-fed pigs and the fox-hunting visitors who carried the pies home; the Melton name now has protected geographical status in the UK. The entry is candid that raising a crust by hand requires practice and that a mould makes life much easier.