PIEATHALON: Melton Mowbray Pie

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by yinzerella

It’s the 2nd Annual Pieathalon, kittens!

2ndannual

Welcome to my contribution, the Melton Mowbray Pie from the Vincent Price Treasury of Great Recipes. This British recipe was submitted by the lovely Jenny of Silver Screen Suppers, who, happens to be British.

This is a whopper of a recipe.

Lookie:

cropped pie

Lemme walk you through it….

12:30: removed the bone and the fat and all the tendons from a 4.3 lb pork shoulder. Also peeled the delicious skin off of a frozen chunk of Christmas Eve ham that I was still holding onto. Because Christmas Eve ham should never just be tossed into the trash.

pork shoulder
45 minutes to get the bone removed and get rid of all the fat/tendon

1:15: added pork bone to a pot with two pigs feet (I did 2 because I couldn’t find any veal) and the celery, onion, etc. to make stock. On to simmer.

pigs feet
One day I will make pickled or jellied pigs feet
stock base
Parsley from my garden!

2:00: made pastry with the help of my trusty KitchenAid mixer

2:25: covered dough to rest

2:30: cubed pork shoulder and ham into small cubes and combined with salt, pepper, and sage. It took me a whole frickin half hour to cube the meat!

cubed pork and ham
It’s a good thing I took the entire dough-resting time to chop

3:00: knead/cut/roll out dough and lined spring-form pan

Oh, bother. I am so bad at baking/pastry. But I gotta do what I gotta do…

latemayearlyjune 015

dough! latemayearlyjune 022latemayearlyjune 026

I was really shocked at how well that worked out

3:35: filled the dough-lined pan with the cubed meat mixture and water.

meat pie

However, the cup of water leaked out the hinge side of the pan. Whoops! I guess I didn’t seal the dough well enough.

Rolled the last part of the dough into a big round and used a shot glass to cut out little circles out of dough scraps to make the “rose.”

unbaked pork pie4:00: Pie went into the oven at 400 degrees

4:05: Strained the stock (mind you, this had been simmering since 1:15), let it sit

4:30: dropped oven temp to 300

Here, I sat down and watched a couple episodes of Daredevil. I was into the first hour but then it kinda lost my interest. Most likely because I was thinking about the next step…

6:15: Skimmed the fat off of the stock, softened the gelatin, mixed it in and boiled it. Poured the gelatin/stock into the pie

filling the pie

I do not own a funnel. So sometimes I have to Macgyver it. But the “funnel” didn’t even work that well, so I just poured the majority of the gelatin/broth just went into the three gaps along the edge of the pie that formed during baking.

6:35: Pie filled! On table to cool down before chilling overnight in the fridge.

This is what it looked like:

pork pie
Doilies!

And then I took a nap.

This pie was an all-day affair and, essentially, took away six hours of my life (with the exception of the hour and a half or so that I sat down and watched Daredevil).  So, this was, like, over four hours of active time on this damn thing. My feet and my back hurt afterwards.

It’s hell to get old!

So the next day…PORK PIE POTLUCK!

What else were you expecting? This pie serves twelve. So I brought in friends. And they all brought dishes, like Brussels sprouts and tabbouleh and lentil salad and potato salad, etc.

It was a lovely buffet.

Here’s the pie!

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I was wary that the spring-form would just rip it apart, but it worked!
inside of pork pie
You can see that the aspic pooled along the outside of the pie because of the way I poured the stock in
pork pie insides
The meat still held together, however

We ate, we drank, we were all kinds of merry, and then I insisted that everyone fill out comment cards. Because it’s easier to just have them write about it than myself.

Some choice bits:

Good shit. Wasn’t expecting a cold dish, but this was legit.

Puts my two favorite words together: pork and pie!

Emily’s outfit: 5 stars (love the headband)

Pie looked beautiful. Impressed with use of spring-form pan…pastry was buttery and flaky.

Flaky and meaty, a perfect combo!

Makes me want to drink Pilsner and eat picnic-style with some cheese and crackers and then go for a boat ride with a guy named Laurent.

The conversations were meat-focused.

This drawing is a thumbs-up. Not a dick.

Honestly, I was really surprised with how well this turned out and how much my friends like it. It was definitely the best pastry I’ve ever made. Right on, Mr. Vincent Price! I’m going to have to file that pastry recipe away for the future.

Liked this? Check out what the other Pieathalon people made! Just click on the links!

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yinzerella

26 thoughts on “PIEATHALON: Melton Mowbray Pie”

  1. Loved the substitution of pig trotters (feet). The Great British Bake Off show has hot water crust pastry using suet lard as one of its challenges for the contestants. Yours looks competition-worthy! And hearty enough to feed the entire Steelers team!

  6. That pie is a thing of beauty. So are your counters, now that we get a good look at them. Congratulations on your pie-if that doesn’t give you pastry confidence, nothing will. You nailed it.

  7. I had my first supposedly authentic single-serving Melton Mowbray pie (I understand that it’s a protected classification so selling a knockoff no matter how good under the name in the U. K. is illegal) in Terminal 5 at Heathrow on Friday, bought from the wee Marks and Spencer on the Arrivals level). It was very good and now I’m tempted to try making my own. Sounds complicated but your success has encouraged me greatly…

    1. I ended up making one to a different recipe — turned out great except that crust, filling, and jelly are all a bit under-salted. I used only pork shoulder and pork belly for the meat, and I got lucky and the crust didn’t leak when I slowly and repeatedly added the jelly liquid from a squeeze bottle.

  9. Ah Emily, I am SO PROUD OF YOU – and Vincent would be too! When I saw you had picked my recipe I knew that you would make a brilliant job of it.

    I am going to write a letter to the chairman of the Melton Mobray Pork Pie Association (such a thing exists, no lie) about your genius endeavors.

    You are a superstar of the pork pie world.

    Jenny

    1. I am proud of me, too! LOL. I had no idea how it would turn out. Actually, I pulled the Melton for a vegetarian so it had to go back into the pool and then I got it.
      I am going to look up this pork pie association…

  13. Wow! You deserve a medal or something. If I had gotten that recipe, I think I would have told everyone I’d just broken my arm and I’d have to sit this round out….

  14. Wow! I’m so impressed with all of the work you put into this one. It looks delicious (except for the congealed strip). Also, your friends sound cool.

      1. Actually, they do! 🙂 (Just Google Tiny or Small Springform Pans) But I’m glad you did the full sized version – you did an amazing job! Beautiful! I just found your blog tonight through the PieAthalon list I’ve been going through, and it’s wonderful!
        I have a question about your crust – would you use this for only savory pies, or sweet as well? Do you think 1/2 of the recipe would make one crust for a regular (9″) pie? I’m excited to try it after reading your kudo’s about it. I’m also excited about going through the rest of your Blog – I love the way you write. You’re very expressive, and I almost felt like I was there at your Dinner myself. The cards were a hoot! 🙂

  18. Holy Crap Emily – You are my new best friend for not making me do this one! It honestly sounds kind of good – and you did such an admirable job. I’ve only worked with my spring form pan once and while I may have been able to find pig’s feet – veal would have been very difficult for me to use since our family doesn’t eat it. You are Amazing and I cannot wait till next year!!

  20. Your pie looked beautiful, it looked exactly like the Pork Pies my English hubby likes to eat. xx

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