We are still in England and making Pork Pie for the next item on our global food trip.

Pork Pie

I seem to recall a lot of references to (actual) meat pies from literature and stories about England that I read or saw when I was growing up. But none of them really stuck in my head that actually talked about how to make them, at least that I have seen and can remember anyway. There are pot pies that we seem to make a lot in the US, but they seem more like meat accented vegetable pies rather than a hefty meat pie. Pork seemed to be the go-to for these kinds of pies and I found a few traditional looking recipes that were the template for this.

I had a few challenges and firsts on this one. I had never used lard in a recipe before, never made a hot water pastry, never used gelatin outside of Jell-O stuff, and never added a fully cooked item to another fully cooked item to complete a recipe. That last one is a bit vague, but will make sense if you go through the whole thing. It was also a little surprising to me that, despite all the hot prep, this is supposed to be served cold.

# EXTRA EQUIPMENT #
small funnel
small jars for pastry forms
string or twine

# PASTRY #
7 oz water
5 1/2 Tbsp butter
2 3/4 oz lard
16 oz all purpose flour
pinch salt
1 beaten egg
1 tsp vegetable oil

# MEAT #
6 oz pork shoulder
3 oz pork belly
1/4 tsp ground black pepper
1/4 tsp ground mace
1/4 tsp ground nutmeg 
1 egg 
Pinch salt

# FILLING #
1/2 envelope of gelatin
1 cup of ham broth
1/4 teaspoon white pepper

Notes

• Sources of inspiration: The Spruce Eats and Saveur

• The two examples above are fairly different approaches. One is mostly meat, the other is meat and vegetable mix. Pick if you want to have one or the other first.

• Seems like there are lots of options for the pork to use in this dish. I went with shoulder and pork belly. Well actually, shoulder and uncured bacon.

• I minced up the meat by hand with 2 knives. This isn't required, but I really wanted to do the 2 handed knife wielding trick.

• Hot pastry was actually kinda fun to work with.

• A point on the jars or forms for the pastry. I used Ball canning jars with a fancy design on the side. That was stupid. When you form the dough up around the sides of the jar and chill it like you are supposed to, the dough loves to stick to all those pretty designs. Use a smooth jar.

• Original recipe I followed called for sheets of gelatin. I couldn't find that and I went with Knox unflavored envelopes.

• This is supposed to be served cold. The gelatin needs to set!

Process

• Pastry

  • Water, butter and lard into a saucepan.

  • Heat to a very low boil.

  • Mix flour, egg and salt in a heat-safe bowl.

  • Add in the heated water, butter and lard.

  • Mix and then knead on a floured surface til smooth.

  • Divide dough - 1/3 set aside, covered.

  • Roll out the 2/3 to 1/4 inch think.

  • Cut 6 inch circles.

  • Oil the outside of the jars.

  • Place jar in the center of the circle and form the dough into a bowl around the base. Repeat for other circles.

  • Wrap dough with a strip of wax paper and tie a string around to hold the dough in place.

  • Put the forms into the fridge.

    

• Fill the pastry

  • Preheat oven to 325.

  • Mince the meat however you see fit. I chopped mine with 2 knives.

  • Mix meat and spices in a bowl.

  • Add meat mix to the chilled pastry. Don't fill all the way.

  • Cut lids to fit the tops from the remaining dough.

  • Seal lids by crimping into the pastry wall tightly.

  • Poke a small hole in the top of the pie (to fit your funnel).

  • Prepare an egg wash - beat the egg, add a bit of salt.

  • Wash the pastries thoroughly.

  • Bake for 50-60 minutes.

  • Cooking is done when pork at center is 175.

    

• Broth gelatin

  • Follow instructions to prepare gelatin.

  • Prepare and add ham broth and season with white pepper.

  • Add a pinch of salt if needed.

  • Let the mixture cool somewhat.

  • Pour the liquid into the pies using a funnel.

  • Leave the pie to cool and gelatin set.

• Something else: I decided to make a side to go with the pies.

  • 3 large carrots

  • 2 Tbsp butter

  • A couple pinches of smoked salt

  • 1/2 tsp brown sugar

  • 1/4 tsp crushed fennel

  • 1/4 tsp lime juice

  • 1/4 tsp black pepper

  • Saute all the above until carrots are almost soft

    

    

Results and Adjustments

Almost all of my changes would be in the process.
Use smoother jars so the dough doesn't stick. Also, letting the pies cool is actually a pretty important step. I poured warm gelatin/broth into hot pies. The result is that it spilled out of the pies and leaked through weak spots and seams. Some of the pies held it ok, but then I tried to pull them up off of the cookie sheet and I broke the bottoms...so a bunch leaked out that way. The cookie sheet probably should have been greased a bit better too.

Truth be told, I kinda freaked out a little bit when I cut into the first pie. As you can see from the photo, the pork is quite pink. I'm not really sure why mine ended up that way, but I can confirm that the temperature was at least 160, which should be more than enough. The pink really threw me off, but after I was calmed by the wife, I went ahead with claiming a success.

Let the pies cool! They are designed to be eaten cold and it is practically required in order for the gelatin to set correctly.

The taste was great! Somehow very comforting and satisfying. Some of the best, soft dough I have ever tasted. Thanks pork fat. The leftovers were awesome as well, and the wife counts this as the favorite so far.

So, what's next? We are done with England now, so it is time to move on to somewhere else in the UK. Wales.

If you need the back-story please see my first post. But to catch you up quickly, I'm cooking my way around the world through a global food trip.

Last post we kicked off with our first destination, Dublin, Ireland and this is dish number two on the visit. For the first dish of the trip, I was talking about barmbrack, but I also wanted to do something a bit more substantial than a bread. Stews with meat and potatoes are a pretty commonly mentioned item in best-of lists for Ireland. A few lists mentioned coddle and I hadn't heard of it before, but it showed up several times, so it seemed like a no-brainer to try.

Dublin Coddle

Coddle is basically a one pot stew. There are a lot of stews and one pot creations designed for the crock pot, but Coddle is a dutch oven dish. There are a few things about it that make it uniquely Irish but I could easily see this as an Americanized crock pot meal as well. Here's the list of ingredients that are designed to cook the Irish way.

1 lb of bangers
1 lb of rashers (Irish bacon)
8 medium Russet potatoes
2 white onions
32 oz ham stock
4 tbsp fresh parsley, chopped
Ground pepper, a lot if you like it, or light to season
Salt, only if your bacon or broth isn't salty

Notes

• This time I got a lot of inspiration and guidance from Irish American Mom, but I also referenced Genius Kitchen and House of Nash Eats

• This dish is all about good meats. You need two things Irish bangers and rashers, or Irish bacon.

• Irish bangers are a very specific kind of beef/pork sausage with a rusk filling...basically twice-baked breadcrumbs.

  • The slang "bangers" refers to the they way they burst open when they are cooked.

  • You can't find them everywhere, but there is a great Irish market in Tinley Park called Winston's Market that has them and they are quite good.

  • Don't overcook them in the pot or they get mushy!

• Irish bacon is its own thing too.

  • American bacon=belly, Canadian bacon=loin, Irish bacon=back.

  • American bacon is cured and smoked, Irish bacon is brined.

  • Also, it is not super easy to find, I again recommend Winston's Market.

  • You want fat...fat is good!

• Ham stock. This stuff is magic! I've had beef, chicken, vegetable, etc. but never ham. Get it! I found LB Jamison's ham soup base at Meijer.

• I kinda guessed on pan sizes and it was almost too much for my dutch oven. Have a big one on hand or halve the recipe.

Process

• Cut:

  • Rashers into 1 in strips

  • Onions into 1/2 in rings

  • Potatoes into chunks

• Brown bangers in butter

• Layer:

  • In order, onions, rashers, bangers, potatoes, salt/pepper, parsley

  • Repeat to make 2 layers

• Pour in the broth

• Heat to boil

• Lower heat to simmer, covered for 2-3 hours or until potatoes are soft

One thing that is pretty obvious from the photo above, this is not a pretty dish. The browned sausages and parsley improve the appearance a little bit, but honestly, looks don't really matter. Once you start to eat it, you won't really care what it looks like. The browned banger sausages have a unique flavor that is much milder than Italian, Polish or sage sausage. The rashers cook down and the fat renders into the ham broth. The potatoes and onions soak up all that flavor as it simmers away. Serve it in a bowl with the broth, like a stew, or just eat the meat and potatoes. Either way, it's great. Leftovers are pretty amazing too and it seems to maybe get even a bit better for round two...and three if you make as big of a batch as I did.

Adjustments

So, if I am making this again, what would I do differently? A bit smaller size for sure, I barely got everything in the pot and the lid on. Fresh parsley...I actually used dried and I'm sure it would have tasted better fresh, and it would have been a bit more pretty to look at. I think I cooked it too long. The bangers get a bit mushy if they cook too long, and I think that is something that you need to monitor. I'd say cook until the potatoes are soft, and not longer.

So, what's next? There is a lot more to do in Ireland, but I'm headed to England next. Yes, that is still the UK, but there is a lot of different stuff to try across the UK, so we'll be making several stops before we stray too far.

If you need the back-story please see my first post. But to catch you up quickly, I'm cooking my way around the world through a global food trip.

My first destination is Dublin, Ireland...or thereabouts. What does everyone think of when they think Irish food? Right...mint ice cream.  Nonono, it is really corned beef and cabbage...but that would be wrong too. Believe it or not, most Irish people don't really eat corned beef and cabbage, for some reason that is an American Irish thing. Sure, they serve it in Ireland when you go to visit, but it is mostly for the tourists. My searches led me far and wide for my first dishes and I saw a lot of traditional Irish stuff like breads and stews, but not really much around corned beef at all. Cabbage makes it into stews for sure, along with plenty of potatoes but the US St. Patrick's day staple is not as common where people seem to expect. The general specialties seemed to be fish, stew and bread, so it made sense to pick something from those general categories to get started. How about we start basic...bread!

Barmbrack

Fruitcakes seem to be the butt of a lot of jokes around Christmas in the US, but I'm pretty convinced that the fruitcakes we see at the holidays now are the Taco Bell Waffle Taco of fruited desserts. Somewhere back in time, there used to be amazing fruit breads, but the side trip down the stuff-everything-possible-into-a-decadent-cake road has seen ingenuity process most of the delicious out of it. No offence if you love fruitcake...but I think the audience there is small. The fruit bread I found from Ireland didn't seem to be anything like the fruitcakes of your imagination, and the result was anything but, so don't bail on me yet.

I found a lot of mentions of barmbrack (or just brack), which is a leavened and lightly spiced dough with citrus and currants. It seems like barmbrack is mostly made around Halloween for celebrations and they even like to hide little treasures baked inside like gold rings or trinkets! I saw a bunch of mentions of it, and even saw it listed as a quintessential Irish recipe, so thought I'd give it a whirl. Here's the list of ingredients.

5 cups all purpose flour
2 eggs
1/4 tsp kosher salt
3.5 oz. (about 2/3 cup) Thompson raisins 
3.5 oz. (about 1 cup) black currants
8 oz. strong, fresh brewed black tea
1/4 cup unsalted softened butter
1 tbsp dried yeast
1.5 cups water (100 degrees F)
1/4 cup sugar (for dough)
1 tsp sugar (for yeast)
Zest of 1 lemon
Zest of 1 orange
1 tsp mixed spice (see below for formula)

Notes

• I'm not going through all the steps because it is done more artfully on my main source The Spruce Eats. I also borrowed ideas from The Irish Times, The Guardian, and the
  Penn State Extension Philadelphia Master Gardeners for reference.

• The main adjustments I made to The Spruce Eats recipe were 1) adding currants, 2) soaking fruit in tea 3) zest in place of candied peel and 4) adding spices to the dough.

• Citrus zest was a replacement for candied peel, mostly because I didn't have it, and it turned out to be a great substitution.

• Currants and raisins are common, but I also saw other fruits used like cherries and blueberries.

• I used a good strong tea, Bewley's Dublin Morning.

• It is important that the tea is hot for soaking the fruit.

• I let the dark fruit soak in the tea for an hour, but would have been way better if it were 4 or 6.

• Mixed spice is a blend of some common baking spices that seems to be referenced a lot in the UK. See the Daring Gourmet for the formula I used.

  • 2 tsp allspice

  • 3 tsp cinnamon

  • 2 tsp nutmeg

  • 3/4 tsp mace

  • 1 tsp ground cloves

  • 1 tsp ground coriander

  • 1 tsp ground ginger

• I had no mace for my attempt, so I think the spice balance was slightly off.

Other than the tea soaked fruit, spices and citrus zest, this ended up being similar to several other yeast breads I had made in the past. As soon as the dough starts to form, the leavened aroma fills the kitchen and it creates a ton of anticipation. When the baking was done, I wanted to cut right into it. But I restrained myself and let it cool.

The recipe makes two pretty decent sized loves of Barmbrack like these I photographed here, recently out of the oven, but cooled and freshly buttered. The citrus flavor is light and mild, and the dark fruit flavor comes through in small bursts with just a hint of the rich tea. It is pretty good plain but is downright fantastic when it is lightly toasted with butter. In fact, that is exactly how we ate most of it. This is an undoubted hit right out of the gate, and will definitely be making it again.

Adjustments

So, if I am making this again, what would I do differently? Not a whole lot really. I do think that the spice ratio was probably a little off, and I'd like to see how it works with mace. Maybe a bit too much allspice. The currants and raisins were very good, but I might even add a bit more of them, and/or possibly some other kinds of dark dried fruit. The tea soak was really interesting and it gave the fruit a deep, rich flavor, even so, I would let that soak a couple more hours. The last thing I'd do, not that it was in many of the sources, but maybe I'd add a drop or two of vanilla.

So, what's next? I still have one more Ireland dish so maybe one recipe per post? Not sure yet of the long term plan, but the short term plan is Dublin Coddle next.