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Excellent Pork Pies to Eat Cold (Raise a crust according)
771. Raise a crust, according to directions given at page 201, inte either a round or oval form; have ready the trimming and small bits of pork cut off when the hog is killed; and, if these are not enough, take the meat off a blade-bone. Beat it well with a rolling-pin; season with the following mixture, and keep the fat and lean separate, which put in layers, or mixed, quite close up to the top; lay on the lid; cut the edge smoothly round, and pinch it; bake in a slow oven, as the meat is very solid.
Seasoning for Ten Pounds of Pork. -Three ounces of black pepper, three ounces of salt, three-quarters of a tea-spoonful of cayenne, the same of mace, finely powdered; let it be well mixed with the meat, which should be chopped very fine. Brush the pies over with yolk of egg as a glaze.
A raised pie of the traditional sort: a stiff hot-water crust moulded by hand, packed with coarsely cut pork trimmings, and baked long and gently so the dense filling cooks through without the pastry scorching. The seasoning quantities are given per ten pounds of meat and need scaling before you touch them.
- Scale the seasoning downThree ounces each of pepper and salt to ten pounds of pork works out to roughly 1.9% salt by weight, which is in line with modern practice, but three ounces of ground black pepper is on the order of a dozen tablespoons and reads as fierce to most palates now. Weigh your meat and calculate proportionally rather than eyeballing it, and consider halving the pepper on a first attempt.
- "A slow oven"Conventionally taken as somewhere in the region of 275-325F. A large pie will need several hours; the crust is there to act as a baking vessel and will take the long heat without drying, but the filling is solid and heats slowly.
- Cook to temperature, not to the clockBecause this is eaten cold, the pork must reach 160F at the centre before it comes out. Push a probe through the steam hole in the lid rather than trusting the colour of the crust.
- The raised crustThe cross-reference is to the book's hot-water paste: flour worked with boiling water and lard into a dough stiff enough to stand unsupported. It must be moulded while warm and pliable; once cool it cracks. If hand-raising seems risky, line a deep loose-bottomed tin or a springform.
- Cut a ventThe recipe does not mention one, but standard practice for a raised pie is a hole in the centre of the lid for steam. A small roll of paper or a metal funnel keeps it open through the bake.
- Fat and leanThe recipe has you keep them separate and then either layer them or mix them; layering lets the fat baste the lean from within. Shoulder or blade meat, hand of pork, and belly trimmings together give roughly the right balance, about a quarter to a third fat. Very lean pork alone makes a dry, crumbly pie.
- Chopped, not mincedThe recipe beats the meat with a rolling pin and chops it very fine by hand, which gives a more irregular, open texture than a modern grinder. Hand-chopping, or a coarse plate on a mincer, keeps that character.
- Jellied stockPeriod pork pies were commonly filled through the vent hole with reduced trotter or bone stock as they cooled, which sets to a jelly and fills the gap left by shrinking meat. This recipe does not mention it, but the result keeps and slices far better if you do.
- Yield and keepingTen pounds of pork will fill three or four substantial pies. Cool completely, then refrigerate and eat within three or four days; the crust and salt gave real keeping power in a cold larder, but not by current standards.