Lifestyle

This ultimate pork pie recipe is great all year round


Pastry perfection (Picture: Paul Ainsworth)

If the Great British Bake Off’s pastry week has whet your appetite, we have just the recipe to satisfy your cravings.

The humble pork pie is a treat not only reserved for summer, it’s a great lunch option or as a snack any time of year. 

And according to recent data from Google there’s huge demand for them, as they are the seventh most searched-for savoury pie – behind shepherd’s, cottage, fish and a few other meaty options.

Luckily, chef Paul Ainsworth has shared his recipe for the ultimate pork pie and, if you’re willing to put in a bit of time and effort, you’ll reap the reward.

His method makes six pies, so it’s perfect for sharing – or simply stock up for yourself (we’re not judging).

Of course you could cheat and buy a ready-make pastry – but this recipe is for those willing to take the plunge and make Paul Hollywood and Prue Leith proud.

Ultimate pork pie recipe:

Pies are the ultimate comfort food (Picture: Paul Ainsworth)

Ingredients

  • 1kg bread flour 
  • 4 whole eggs, beaten 
  • 400ml water
  • 325g lard 
  • 20g salt 
  • 20g rosemary 
  • 200g pork sausage meat
  • 1 tsp Worchester sauce
  • Chopped parsley
  • 1 clove garlic grated
  • 1 onion chopped fine 
  • Picked thyme 
  • A grating of nutmeg
  • Salt and pepper
  • 1 tbsp olive oil
  • 1 egg, beaten for brushing
  • 20g room temperature butter, for greasing

Method

1. Place lard, water and rosemary in pan, bring to boil to melt lard and infuse for five minutes.

2. With the dough hook on your mixer, combine together, flour, salt and eggs. 

3. Pass lard and water through a fine sieve into a jug, then pour into flour mixture and mix until combined. Wrap the pastry in cling film and refrigerate. 

4. In a frying pan, add the olive oil and over a medium heat add the diced onion, thyme, nutmeg, garlic and salt and pepper and lightly cook with to soften the onions, but not add colour to them. Once cooked, transfer to a bowl and leave to cool.

5. Once your onions are cool, add your sausage meat and mix well. Leave to chill until needed or use straight away at room temperature. Preheat oven to 180°C.

6. To build your pork pies you will need 4 x 7 cm sized metal rings suitable for the oven, one baking sheet lined with greaseproof, one rolling pin (or pasta machine), plus flour for dusting.

7. Lift out your pastry from the fridge and flour your worktop. Cut into six pieces. Using one bit of pastry at a time, roll-out lightly with a rolling pin until over 10cm in width, then put through the pasta roller machine, one thickness at a time until you’ve completed 4 levels, or simply use your rolling pin and roll out to the thickness of a pound coin. Now cut 4 x 10cm disks. Put these disks into the fridge.

8. Now repeat the previous step but you need 4 x 7cm disks with a small hole (roughly 0.5cm wide). Cut out the center. These are your lids. 

9. To build your pork pies, grease the rings heavily with room temperature butter, now gently work the 10cm size disk into the 7cm metal ring, making sure to fully push down the whole way round to form a solid bottom. 

10. Once all lined, weigh your sausage meat filling to 100g batches and put one ball per pie. 

11. Heavily brush the lid with egg yolk and place on top of pie, push together the lid and base, trim any excess pastry and crimp the edges using your thumb and fore finger.

12. Place onto a greaseproof tray and bake for 20-25 minutes until pastry is golden brown all over.

13. Remove from the oven and transfer the pies to a rack to cool. Once cool carefully remove from the metal rings, they should slide straight out, if not tease away carefully with a paring knife. 

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