Having never worked with hot water crust before, I found this recipe a bit less intimidating than some of the more traditional ones that called for shaping the pies with a dolly and baking them without any supports. With this one, you bake it in a loaf tin. The only trick is unmolding it at the end. Often when recipes advise making a sling to help lift your baked goods out of the tin, I ignore it. I definitely don't recommend doing that here. You will need the sling!

I didn't get the eggs quite centred in the pie this time, but I'm pretty happy with it as a first attempt! And it tasted lovely. I was worried that all the ground pork/sausage would make it too fatty, but it was quite nice! And I appreciate that this pie didn't require adding gelatin. It's one less thing to worry about, plus I don't enjoy the texture of gelatin in pies anyway.

Pork and Egg Pie

Slightly adapted from BBC Food

Ingredients

Filling

• 300g ground pork
• 300g sausages, casings removed
• 150g cooked ham hock¹, chopped
• 2-3 shallots, chopped
• 3 Tbsp. chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
• 4 hard-boiled eggs², shelled
• salt and white pepper, to taste

Crust

• 450g soft (plain/standard/pastry) flour
• 100g hard (strong/high grade/bread) flour
• 75g unsalted butter, softened
• 200mL water
• 100g lard
• 1/2 tsp. coarse sea salt
• 1 egg, beaten

Directions

Filling

1. Combine ground pork, sausage meat, ham, shallots, and parsley and mix well.
2. Season with salt and white pepper.
3. If desired, pinch off a small amount of filling and cook it in a pan, taste and adjust seasonings as desired.
4. Set filling aside.

Crust

1. Grease a 20x10cm (8x4") loaf pan with lard.
2. Make a sling out of parchment paper and place it in the pan. Make sure that the sling overhangs the sides of the pan. It will work best if the overhang is on on the long sides. This way the bottom and long sides are covered and only the two short ends will be in direct contact with the pan.
3. Combine soft and hard flours and mix well.
4. Cut in butter until crumbly.
5. Heat water with lard and salt until just boiling.
6. Pour hot lard mixture into flour mixture and mix to form a soft dough.
7. Working quickly, divide the dough into two unequal portions with about 1/3 of the dough in the smaller portion.
8. Quickly roll out the larger portion of dough and use it to line the prepared loaf pan. Be careful not to tear it as any leaks will cause it to stick to the pan. Do not trim the overhang.
9. Place about half the filling into the pie.
10. Line the eggs up down the middle of the pie. Lay them end-to-end. (Trimming off the tops and bottoms may make them fit better if your eggs are particularly large.
11. Pack in the rest of the filling around the eggs.
12. Brush the top edge of the crust/overhanging dough with the beaten egg.
13. Roll out the remaining portion of dough and place it on top.
14. Press and pinch to seal the top and bottom crusts together. Now any excessive overhang may be trimmed.
15. Cut three holes in the top crust to allow steam to escape.
16. Brush top crust with beaten egg.
17. Bake at 200°C (400°F) for 30 minutes (to put some colour on it).
18. Reduce temperature to 180°C (350°F) and bake for another 60-90 minutes.
19. To remove the pie from the pan, turn it on its side and use the sling to slide it out.
20. Serve in thick slices. Honey mustard and Branston pickle both go very well with it.

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¹ I couldn't get any ham hocks, so I substituted 150g of chopped ham steak. I'm reasonably happy with the results this produced. ^Back
2 I recommend going for "medium-boiled" eggs for this. They'll be getting cooked more when the pie bakes anyway. I boiled mine for ~7 minutes. ^Back