Vimto Cordial and Pork Pie

[Simon & Emily]

Going off topic again (sorry ops: ), but does anyone know if you can buy the skins to make your own sausages here? As meat seems so cheap compared to the UK (although I know local salaries are lower) do many people make their own?

Emily

[jubjub]

funny I was thinking about the Gary Rhodes one too, could not find the recipe for that, but here is a Rick Stein one, they take a lot of work, but hey, if you want one that much, its worth it!

Ingredients

For the fillings:
1.2kg/2 frac12; lb boned pork shoulder
225g/8oz lean bacon
1 tbsp chopped fresh sage
2.5ml/½ tsp each ground mace, freshly grated nutmeg and ground allspice
2 tsp anchovy essence
salt and freshly ground black pepper

For the jelly:
900g/2lb pork bones
1 pig's trotter
1 carrot
1 onion
1 bouquet garni (celery, bay leaf, thyme and parsley)
12 black peppercorns
4 cloves

For the pastry:
450g/1lb plain flour
1 tsp salt
275g/10oz chilled butter, cut into
pieces
2 eggs
1 egg yolk
2-3 tbsp cold water



Method
1. For the jelly: put all the ingredients into a large pan, cover with water and bring to the boil. Cover and simmer gently for 3 hours.
2.Strain through a very fine sieve into a clean pan and boil vigorously until reduced to 600ml/1 pint. Season to taste and leave to cool.
3. To make the filling: cut the pork and bacon into 1cm/½ in pieces. Put half of the pork and 55g/2oz of the bacon into a food processor and process using the pulse button until coarsely chopped.
4. Scrape into a bowl and stir in the rest of the diced pork, bacon herbs, spices, anchovy essence, 1 tsp salt and some pepper.
5. Fry a little piece of the mixture in sunflower oil, taste and adjust the flavourings if necessary.
6. To make the pastry, sift the flour and salt into a food processor or mixing bowl. Rub in the butter until the mixture looks like fine breadcrumbs.
7. Beat the whole egg with the egg yolk and water and gradually stir into the dry ingredients to make a soft dough. Knead briefly until smooth then cut off one third of the mixture and set it aside for the lid.
8. Roll out the larger piece and use to line the base and sides of a 20cm/8in clip-sided cake tin, leaving the excess pastry overhanging the edges.
9. Preheat the oven to 200C/400F/Gas 6.
10. To assemble the pie:spoon the pork filling into the tin and slightly round the top of the mixture to give the finished pie a nice shape.
11. Brush the edge of the pastry with beaten egg. Roll out the remaining pastry and use to cover the top of the pie.
12. Cut a small hole into the centre of the lid with a small pastry cutter, remove the plug of pastry and leave the cutter in place to retain the hole during baking.
13. Brush with more beaten egg and decorate with a twisted rope of pastry and pastry leaves. Brush the top with beaten egg.
14. Bake the pie for 30 minutes, then lower the oven temperature to 180C/350F/Gas 4 and continue to cook for a further 1½ hours, loosely covering the pie with a triple-thickness sheet of greaseproof paper once it is nicely browned.
15. Finally, remove the pie from the oven and leave to cool for 2 hours. Then warm through the jelly and pour into the pie through the hole in the top. Remove cutter used to make the hole in the top. Leave to go cold overnight.

[Simon & Emily]

funny I was thinking about the Gary Rhodes one too, could not find the recipe for that, but here is a Rick Stein one, they take a lot of work, but hey, if you want one that much, its worth it!

Yep, a heck of a lot of work, but it will taste wooooonderfull :P :P

What's more, you know it will be completely free of all the c**p that is pumped into food nowadays.

All I need now is a decent Sheperds Pie recipe that doesn't need decent gravy granuals and I'll be home and dry

Emily

[jubjub]

ah thats easy, use beef stock and flour to thicken it, for seasoning the gravy, use worcester sauce and pepper, and maybe a bit of paprika and a dash of tomato puree.....

[Yogi]

Don't they have gravy granules in NZ either?

Cheers,

Yogi.

[Simon & Emily]

Gravy granuals in NZ - it's a very long (and some would say boring) story

You should be able to find it under a search - they seemed to crop up in most threads!!

Emily

(It seems that the local ones do not quite come up to scratch in the taste test with good old Bisto or Tescos / Sainsburys. The MAF don't seem to mind a few lorry loads in containers though )

[Diny]

Don't they have gravy granules in NZ either?

Good God Yogi ...... which planet have you been holidaying on?

Diny

[Lil]

I despise Pork Pie, but hubby is your definitive Pork Pie man. He'll get up in the middle of the night to eat Pork Pie and leave the crumbs on the worktop. Anyways, he had quite resigned himself to the fact that he'd have to live the rest of his life without his beloved pies and find something else to fill the gap.....

Until that is.... he spies Goulds English Recipe Pork Pies in the fridge at Pak'N Save (now I just had to go and look in the fridge to check that name on the packet, but it's gone). Now I have to take his word for it and the fact that they get scoffed so quickly, that they are pretty acceptable.

[GeorgeM]

I despise Pork Pie

How could you? I bet you don't even like tripe either...

hubby is your definitive Pork Pie man.

Good on him

He'll get up in the middle of the night to eat Pork Pie and leave the crumbs on the worktop.

So?? Anyone see anything strange in this behaviour? Seems perfectly reasonable to me...

Anyways, he had quite resigned himself to the fact that he'd have to live the rest of his life without his beloved pies and find something else to fill the gap.....

I know exactly how he feels. Must be just like a rugby fan living in Auckland...

Until that is.... he spies Goulds English Recipe Pork Pies in the fridge at Pak'N Save... ...they get scoffed so quickly... ...they are pretty acceptable.

Thanks for the tip - I'll be looking out for them tomorrow!

[Diny]

OMG George ....Tripe !!!!!!!!!

That has to be put in the same category as my mother in laws sausages.

Diny