Nigel Slater's pork pie recipe | Food (2024)

FAQs

What is the difference between a pork pie and a Melton Mowbray pork pie? ›

The sides of a Melton Mowbray Pork Pie are bow-shaped as they are baked free standing, whereas most other pork pies are straight-sided being baked in hoops. The meat used is fresh pork which is naturally grey when cooked, liked roast pork, not pink like other pork pies which used cured pork.

Traditional jelly was made with pig trotters boiling in water down to that liquid that turns into jelly. Adding jelly also helps keep the pork filling moist. So if you would like to it's not hard but you will need: Gelatin.

Historians believe that the pork pie evolved from a pasty. Many parts of the country used to cure the pork filling before using it in a pie thereby creating a pink colour on the inside. In Melton Mowbray, the pie contained uncured fresh meat. Once roasted, the filling was grey resembling uncured roast pork.

Yes, they are meant to be eaten cold, the meat in a pork pie is surrounded by savoury aspic jelly which would melt if it was heated up spoiling the pie. They often feature in British cold buffets or as part of a ploughman's lunch with bread, cheese & pickle of some kind.

Leeson Family Butchers' Melton Mowbray pork pies are amongst the best in the world. Show Champion 2018, Gold award winner 2019, Show Champion (pork pie category) 2021, 2022 and 2023.

While you can make a pork pie without the jelly, traditional pork pies have gelatin (some boiled pig trotters) added to preserve and keep the meat moist. You will often see a small hole in the lid of the pie where the jelly has been poured in.

500g pack of Jelflaval, powdered gelatine. Ideal for home users who want to use smaller quantities to use in their pies.

Apart from the literal meaning of actual pies filled with pork, 'pork pies' is co*ckney rhyming slang for 'lies'. With rhyming slang the actual portion that rhymes is often dropped in order to further confuse the outsider, so it becomes 'porkies'. So, someone 'telling porkies' is a liar.

In Yorkshire, pork pies are often served hot, accompanied with gravy or with mushy peas and mint sauce. It is also a common combination served at Bonfire Night celebrations. In Yorkshire slang a pork pie is sometimes called a "growler", a term probably derived from the "NAAFI growler" of earlier naval and army slang.

Why are some pork pies grey? ›

Grey meat seasoned with salt and pepper, succulent jelly, and bowed walls are the hallmark of a Melton Mowbray pork pie. The meat used is fresh and uncured, which gives it its distinctive grey colouration, in contrast to pork pies made from cured pork, where the meat is pink.

Pork pies tend to contain quite a lot of saturated fats (lard, pork fat, oil) and salt. They are very high in calories (a small pie can be as much as 500cals) So yeah, I'd say they're fairly unhealthy. Yes and no. I love them and would buy a little one and have it with some vegetables.

Chutney (or relish)

Delicious with a pork pie! Opt for an onion or vegetable-based chutney. Mango chutney would elevate our curried veg Ruby Murray Pasty!

A use-by date on food is about safety. This is the most important date to remember. Never eat food after the use-by date, even if it looks and smells ok, as it could make you very ill.

This portly pastry, filled with pork and savoury jelly, is a British classic dating back centuries. Few dishes link Britain so closely to its gastronomic past as the pork pie. Indeed it's one of the rare everyday foodstuffs that would be instantly recognisable to our medieval forebears.

First hand-raised by baker, Mary Dickinson in 1851 and still made today with over 170 years of expertise, skill and craft. Our pies are made with outdoor-bred, British pork and have peppery seasoning complimenting the rich, hot water crust pastry.

Because it contains fresh — rather than cured — meat, the inside of a Melton Mowbray pie is the grey of roast pork, rather than the ham-like pink common elsewhere, and seasoned with salt, pepper and nutmeg or mace.

Made with seasoned pork shoulder, encased in a rich, hot water crust pastry, surrounded by succulent bonestock jelly. To ensure you get the very best taste experience, take your pork pie out of the fridge to come up to temperature for 30 minutes and then get stuck in.

The main distinctive feature of a Melton pie is that it is made with a hand-formed crust. The uncured meat of a Melton pie is grey in colour when cooked and the meat is chopped, rather than minced. As the pies are baked free-standing, the sides bow outwards, rather than being vertical as with mould-baked pies.