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madbakerThis week's Resolution Recipe: Derby Picnic Pie.
It's coincidental that last week's Resolution Recipe was a vegetarian pie, and this week's is a carnivorous version. We are committed omnivores.
The egg-boiling directions crack me up. (I followed them - they do work.)
Filling:
4 eggses
6 oz ham
1 lb pork shoulder, finely chopped or coarsely minced
8 oz pork belly, ditto
3/4 cup parsley, minced
1/8 tsp mace
1 tsp salt (With the ham and pancetta, it didn't need any additional salt.)
1 tsp pepper
no garlic (Ha! I used... more.) I also added 1 bunch chives, chopped.
10-11 oz sliced bacon (I used house-made strip pancetta)
Hot water crust:
3 1/2 cups white flour
3 1/2 cups strong white flour
1 egg
1/2 cup butter, at room temperature
1 1/4 cups water
2/3 cup (150 g) lard
1 1/2 tsp salt
flour, for dusting
1 egg yolk + 1 Tbsp milk for wash
I'm going to tell you how to cook an egg because, let's be honest, we often mess up the simplest things. I start with boiling water, add the eggses, turn down the heat, and cook for 9 minutes for an almost hard-boiled egg with a soft yolk. In this way, the egg can continue to cook during the baking of the pie without becoming too dry. Run the egg under cold water to stop the cooking process and immediately peel it while wet because this is the easiest way to do it. Set the eggses aside while you prepare the rest of the filling.
Finely chop the ham and place in a bowl with the chopped or minced meat, parsley, mace, salt and pepper, and garlic and chives. Knead together (with clean hands - they work the best). Cover and place in the fridge while you make the pastry. Heat your oven to 375 and drape a loaf tin with a strip of parchment (-- !) so that the pie can be easily removed later. Greasing is not necessary because the dough itself contains enough fat.
Place the flours in a large bowl, mix in the egg, and place the soft butter in pieces on top. Bring the water to a boil in a saucepan with the lard and salt, but turn off the heat as soon as it starts to bubble. Once the lard has melted, pour the hot mixture over the butter and flour and use a wooden spoon or spatula to mix everything together. Once the dough has cooled to touch-temperature, knead it into a soft dough.
Set aside a third of the pastry to make the lid. Roll out the remaining dough until 3/8" thick. Fold the pastry inward and place in the tin. Fold up the sides and let the excess hang over the edges. Line the pastry with the strips of bacon, letting the ends hang over the sides. Add half the meat mixture and gently press it into the sides of the tin. Place the eggses on top of the meat and press them into the meat slightly so they stand upright. Add the rest of the meat mixture to fill up the pie. Fold the bacon over the meat, adding more strips so that the entire outside of the filling is covered with bacon.
Roll out the remaining pastry for the lid, brush the edges with the egg wash, and put the lid on top. Trim the excess and crimp the pastry together with your fingers. Decorate with excess pastry and brush the top with the egg wash.
Reduce the oven to 350 and bake for 1 1/2 hours. (Lies!) The pie is cooked when the internal temperature reaches 185 F. You can remove the pie from the tin 15 minutes before and brush the sides with egg wash before returning to the oven to continue baking.
Let the pie cool completely before serving. A sharp English mustard is a perfect match!
What worked: While a long recipe, none of it was difficult. The hot water crust pastry worked better than I was afraid it would (getting better acquainted is one reason I chose this recipe).
The hard-boiled eggses lined up nicely and showed well when we sliced for serving (and everyone got part of an egg). Flavor- and appearance-wise, this was better than I hoped; I figured it would be pretty stodgy and beige, but the large amount of parsley as well as the flavors from the different sort of porks helped. I would add some chopped sage as well, because pork and sage.
I might have been able to bake this free-standing, but I figured using a loaf pan was training wheels. The suggestion I've read with free-standing pies is to chill them for a bit to dry out the dough, which helps it keep its shape. (Wouldn't that make it more difficult to crimp together the top though?)
What didn't: Oh boy. There was way too much pastry; I suspect a 2/3 batch would have been sufficient and still provide enough structure. My pastry was too thick, probably 1/2" at least, and more in a few places like the top. There was significant overhang around the edges, but I'm blaming this particular tin which has ledges. If I'd used one of my standard straight loaf pans I would have trimmed that inch off, because there would have been no ledges for excess dough to sit.
I forgot to put the parchment in, which meant that getting the loaf out of the tin was more difficult. It didn't stick (as promised) but we were trying to be gentle and not break off the top decorations, so we had to gingerly flip on a plate and such. More work than a simple "yoink!" would have been with the parchment.
Most importantly, it was nowhere near 185 after 90 minutes. It took close to 4 hours. That meant it didn't cool enough before dinner, and the slices completely fell apart. There was also a fair amount of internal shrinkage, which meant yummy juices absorbed into the crust so it was worth eating, but also contributed to the deconstruction.
Later slices when cold were easy and kept their shape, so lesson learned.
Will I make it again? I hadn't planned to - but the other three people all said they'd eat it again.
I wonder if this would work as individual muffin cup pies, with a half egg in each? Worth cogitating and maybe measuring the volume of a loaf pan vs the muffin tin. (A quick Google search says a 9x5 loaf pan is ~8 cups and a standard muffin tin is ~6 cups, so maybe a 3/4 recipe would work closely enough...)
It's coincidental that last week's Resolution Recipe was a vegetarian pie, and this week's is a carnivorous version. We are committed omnivores.
The egg-boiling directions crack me up. (I followed them - they do work.)
Filling:
4 eggses
6 oz ham
1 lb pork shoulder, finely chopped or coarsely minced
8 oz pork belly, ditto
3/4 cup parsley, minced
1/8 tsp mace
1 tsp pepper
no garlic (Ha! I used... more.) I also added 1 bunch chives, chopped.
10-11 oz sliced bacon (I used house-made strip pancetta)
Hot water crust:
3 1/2 cups white flour
3 1/2 cups strong white flour
1 egg
1/2 cup butter, at room temperature
1 1/4 cups water
2/3 cup (150 g) lard
1 1/2 tsp salt
flour, for dusting
1 egg yolk + 1 Tbsp milk for wash
I'm going to tell you how to cook an egg because, let's be honest, we often mess up the simplest things. I start with boiling water, add the eggses, turn down the heat, and cook for 9 minutes for an almost hard-boiled egg with a soft yolk. In this way, the egg can continue to cook during the baking of the pie without becoming too dry. Run the egg under cold water to stop the cooking process and immediately peel it while wet because this is the easiest way to do it. Set the eggses aside while you prepare the rest of the filling.
Finely chop the ham and place in a bowl with the chopped or minced meat, parsley, mace, salt and pepper, and garlic and chives. Knead together (with clean hands - they work the best). Cover and place in the fridge while you make the pastry. Heat your oven to 375 and drape a loaf tin with a strip of parchment (-- !) so that the pie can be easily removed later. Greasing is not necessary because the dough itself contains enough fat.
Place the flours in a large bowl, mix in the egg, and place the soft butter in pieces on top. Bring the water to a boil in a saucepan with the lard and salt, but turn off the heat as soon as it starts to bubble. Once the lard has melted, pour the hot mixture over the butter and flour and use a wooden spoon or spatula to mix everything together. Once the dough has cooled to touch-temperature, knead it into a soft dough.
Set aside a third of the pastry to make the lid. Roll out the remaining dough until 3/8" thick. Fold the pastry inward and place in the tin. Fold up the sides and let the excess hang over the edges. Line the pastry with the strips of bacon, letting the ends hang over the sides. Add half the meat mixture and gently press it into the sides of the tin. Place the eggses on top of the meat and press them into the meat slightly so they stand upright. Add the rest of the meat mixture to fill up the pie. Fold the bacon over the meat, adding more strips so that the entire outside of the filling is covered with bacon.
Roll out the remaining pastry for the lid, brush the edges with the egg wash, and put the lid on top. Trim the excess and crimp the pastry together with your fingers. Decorate with excess pastry and brush the top with the egg wash.
Reduce the oven to 350 and bake for 1 1/2 hours. (Lies!) The pie is cooked when the internal temperature reaches 185 F. You can remove the pie from the tin 15 minutes before and brush the sides with egg wash before returning to the oven to continue baking.
Let the pie cool completely before serving. A sharp English mustard is a perfect match!
What worked: While a long recipe, none of it was difficult. The hot water crust pastry worked better than I was afraid it would (getting better acquainted is one reason I chose this recipe).
The hard-boiled eggses lined up nicely and showed well when we sliced for serving (and everyone got part of an egg). Flavor- and appearance-wise, this was better than I hoped; I figured it would be pretty stodgy and beige, but the large amount of parsley as well as the flavors from the different sort of porks helped. I would add some chopped sage as well, because pork and sage.
I might have been able to bake this free-standing, but I figured using a loaf pan was training wheels. The suggestion I've read with free-standing pies is to chill them for a bit to dry out the dough, which helps it keep its shape. (Wouldn't that make it more difficult to crimp together the top though?)
What didn't: Oh boy. There was way too much pastry; I suspect a 2/3 batch would have been sufficient and still provide enough structure. My pastry was too thick, probably 1/2" at least, and more in a few places like the top. There was significant overhang around the edges, but I'm blaming this particular tin which has ledges. If I'd used one of my standard straight loaf pans I would have trimmed that inch off, because there would have been no ledges for excess dough to sit.
I forgot to put the parchment in, which meant that getting the loaf out of the tin was more difficult. It didn't stick (as promised) but we were trying to be gentle and not break off the top decorations, so we had to gingerly flip on a plate and such. More work than a simple "yoink!" would have been with the parchment.
Most importantly, it was nowhere near 185 after 90 minutes. It took close to 4 hours. That meant it didn't cool enough before dinner, and the slices completely fell apart. There was also a fair amount of internal shrinkage, which meant yummy juices absorbed into the crust so it was worth eating, but also contributed to the deconstruction.
Later slices when cold were easy and kept their shape, so lesson learned.
Will I make it again? I hadn't planned to - but the other three people all said they'd eat it again.
I wonder if this would work as individual muffin cup pies, with a half egg in each? Worth cogitating and maybe measuring the volume of a loaf pan vs the muffin tin. (A quick Google search says a 9x5 loaf pan is ~8 cups and a standard muffin tin is ~6 cups, so maybe a 3/4 recipe would work closely enough...)
