Serves a Crowd

Raised Pork Pie

September 15, 2010
0
0 Ratings
  • Serves 10-12
Author Notes

This is a festival dish but well worth making. Start at least one day ahead because you are making stock to jell. Don't schedule anything else for the two days you are working on this recipe. Serve with a green salad and beer. The best books for this kind of recipe are Jane Grigson's Good Things and Charcuterie and French Pork Cookery. Elizabeth David has some meat pie ish recipes and Diana Kennedy as well. It is amazing if you make your own lard but then you need a three day weekend. I really should look into purchasing a pig, but then I would have to buy a freezer to go with it. —luvcookbooks

What You'll Need
Ingredients
  • Homemade Stock
  • 2 pounds pork bones with meat attached
  • 1 sliced onion
  • 1 carrot
  • 2 oregano sprigs
  • 2 thyme sprigs
  • 1 teaspoon peppercorns
  • 1 bay leaf
  • Raised Crust Pork Pie
  • 2 pounds pork shoulder
  • 1/4 pound pork fat, cut from pork shoulder
  • 1 teaspoon kosher salt
  • 1 teaspoon pepper, or to taste
  • 1 teaspoon allspice
  • 1 3/4 pounds flour
  • 1 tablespoon kosher salt
  • 3/4 pound lard
  • 1 cup water
Directions
  1. Homemade Stock
  2. Simmer all ingredients, covered with water, for several hours. Skim as you go when scum rises to the surface. Strain and cool in the refrigerator. Remove fat. Return to pan and reduce to 2 cups. Refrigerate. It should jell. If it doesn't, add some plain gelatine.
  1. Raised Crust Pork Pie
  2. Cube the pork shoulder, removing fat and skin. Grind about half the pork shoulder and mix all ingredients together. Refrigerate.
  3. Preheat oven to 400. Combine flour and salt. Melt lard and water. When they come to a boil (watch carefully), pour into the flour and salt mixture. As soon as it coheres, turn it out onto a floured surface and lightly knead, about like a biscuit dough. It will be tough if you overwork it.
  4. Roll out two thirds of the dough and line a deep dish pie pan. Spoon filling over the bottom crust. Rolll out the top crust and pinch the edges of the bottom crust and top crust together. You want a plain edge, not fluted or crimped.
  5. Carefully cut a round hole in the middle of the top crust and hold it open with a rolled up piece of parchment paper or some aluminum foil.
  6. Brush with egg yolk wash if desired and bake for half an hour. Lower heat to 350 and bake for another hour. Cool and remove the parchment paper from the hole in the middle of the top crust.
  7. Warm the pork jell until it is just liquid and pour into the hole in the middle of the top crust, slowly and carefully. It is best to do this one spoonful at a time. Otherwise it doesn't seep out to the edges of the pie. Also, do not spoon it into a completely cold pie or it won't absorb well. If the pie is too hot, the stock melts into the bottom crust and the bottom crust is soggy. This is not an easy recipe and you will never make it again if you do not follow the directions and end up with a magnificent pie. You will not need all of the jellied stock, stop when the round hole is not dispersing the jell, about 3/4 to 1 cup.
  8. Cover and refrigerate. When you serve it the stock will have jelled. This is a very filling pie. You only need a green salad and then a long walk before dessert. Someone else will bring the dessert, a non pastry dessert, maybe fresh fruit salad or chocolate dipped candied grapefruit peel served with espresso and Sambuca.

See what other Food52ers are saying.

  • SallyCan
    SallyCan
  • luvcookbooks
    luvcookbooks
  • cheese1227
    cheese1227

14 Reviews

SallyCan October 19, 2010
Here are some photos of your recipe. I made a full batch of stock (with lots extra for other things), 3/4 recipe filling, and 1/2 recipe crust, for a small 2C casserole and a smaller ramekin. In the smaller one, I added some pork liver and Epices Parisienne to the filling & mushrooms with onions and Cognac to the top, which made it more of a pate. But, frankly, I liked your simpler pie better, as you could taste the aspic from the pork stock, which was superb. Thanks for a great recipe!
 
luvcookbooks October 19, 2010
These are the greatest photos, much better than anything I could have taken. Interesting to see the variation. I often find a simple recipe is the best, although I am a sucker for exoic ingredients.
Thank you so much.
 
SallyCan October 11, 2010
I made this and it is AMAZING! To heck with chicken wings, this was well received as fine football food! It's really not that difficult to make, and well worth the time it takes to simmer the stock down into a rich, flavorful gel. The crust is a simple biscuit style crust, perfect for the filling. Iuvcookbooks, I took some pictures, is it possible for me to add them to the recipe, or should I send them to you to post?
 
luvcookbooks October 12, 2010
I'm so thrilled!!! Please post and I'm glad of the ease you found in making it. Do you think you could still send it to the editors so it could be an editors' pick candidate? It was nominated but nobody signed up to test it. It gives another angle to how much trouble it is to make-- I'm an amateur, and maybe it's the smaller quantity????
I read on the site that you can just click and add the photos... can't wait to see them! Thanks a million!
 
SallyCan October 6, 2010
Are you baking that pie? I've got a full batch of the broth going now (any extra will be good for beans or cassoulet), and will be making a smaller one tomorrow or the next day. Do you ever put other things in the pie, like mushrooms or onions?
 
luvcookbooks October 7, 2010
I'm so sorry to be behind schedule, but I am. Have lard and pork shoulder, searching for bones and fat. Plan trip to the Fairway at 125th this eve, they have a lovely pork stew on the bone pack usually. We're going to a wedding this weekend, so it may not happen til next wk.
Stay in touch!! I'm thrilled beyond words that you are trying this recipe out.
 
luvcookbooks October 7, 2010
I think a mushroom duxelle preparation might be a great addition, perhaps with some spinach. Julia Child Volume 2, I think, has a mushroom and spinach duxelle recipe. Of course, now you're spending a week making it but what is time when there is a good meal at the end of it?
 
luvcookbooks September 17, 2010
Sally, I slept on your comment and decided to make it the first weekend in October (2 busy til then). Let me know the size pie you are interested in and I will test it out and keep a time line as well, then post in comments.

I wanted to make it for a photo anyway. Am blissfully happy to have a group of people around willing to discuss meat pies. Encourage the purchase of a copy of Jane Grigson's Good Things.
 
SallyCan September 21, 2010
thanks Luvcookbooks. I've got a shallow two cup casserole dish that I sometimes use to make small pies, so do you think if I used 1/3 - or 1/2 ? - recipe that would be about right? Good Things looks like a good book :)
 
luvcookbooks September 21, 2010
This recipe makes a huge pie, so I think if you use a two cup container you should plan to freeze some of the pastry and filling, either separately or, probably best, as another pie. I will check out my baking dishes and see if I can make a two cup pie the weekend of Oct. 2. If you bake first, let me know what happens.
 
SallyCan September 16, 2010
I keep coming back to this one and re-reading it, I'm thinking I'd like to give it a try. Would it adapt to being made into smaller pies, rather than one large pie? Like the serving - and long walk - suggestions (especially the chocolate candied grapefruit). I'm not sure that I could not schedule anything else for two days, though! (Does reading recipes online count?) What festival, by the way?
 
luvcookbooks September 16, 2010
Im pretty sure that a smaller version would work fine, let me know how it works out!

It doesnt actually take up the entire weekend but a large chunk.
For me the festival is christmas but it could be any major occasion.
 
cheese1227 September 15, 2010
I love your explaination of the process.
 
luvcookbooks September 16, 2010
Thanks!