The good thing about Melton Mowbray is not only that it sounds like a place in Leicestershire, it actually is a place in Leicestershire. It's also modifies the noun 'pie' to make a pie from said town that uses fresh rather than cured pork. The addition of eggs makes it a 'gala' pork pie and if the first thing you thought of was Dali's wife, you'll probably enjoy this .
Melton Mowbray pie has EU Protection of Desginated Orgin protection so this, technically, isn't that.
The model recipe I used is the V-Tol Veal Ham and Egg Pie Recipe , which was made by Gordon Bedson, who also designed aircraft and the Mackson . Anyone like to drive a car built by Nigella Lawson? Didn't think so.
The recipe isn't hard but it does require doing several different things correctly. They are – making a hot water paste, boiling some meat, boiling eggs and making a jelly. The V-tol recipe explains the technical details well.
As I was using fresh pork (a bit of fillet) rather than ham, to bump up the flavour I marinated it for a few hours in white wine and a mix of bay leaf, thyme, parsley, rosemary, juniper berries and peppercorns.
The pork went into a saucepan with the marinade and herbs along with a small rack of veal and a pig's trotter. It was then filled with water to cover and simmered for 30 minutes – skimming as necessary. I kept the veal bones and the pig's trotter in there to make a heartier stock and boost the natural gelatine and simmer for another 30 minutes before filtering in a seive with some paper towel in it and reducing to just two cups.
By this stage you should have a pile of cubed pork and veal. Allow it to cool.
Take the reduced stock and add a leaf of gelatine that you've dissolved in a little heted sherry and white wine (actually it might have been calvados and white wine but I can't remember).
Make the hot paste. It's actually very similar to a choux pastry but with lard instead of butter and no eggs in it. The boiling water/lard combo smells but kneading the warm fluid dough to smoothness is surprisingly relaxing. Roll out and line a greased springform pan with it – reserving some dough for the top of the pie.
Boil the eggs – 10 minutes in boiling salted water and cool them under cold running water to stop the cooking.
So… a covering layer of meat, then encirlce the eggs around the middle and fill with meat. Place pastry on top, seal the edges with a back of a spoon. Decorate suitably with the excess pastry and brush with an egg wash. It's important to make a couple of breathing holes. Put a foil trumpet in them to allow steam to escape while cooking. These holes become useful later.
Place it all in a 200C oven for 80 minutes – just keep an eye on it to make sure the pastry doesn't burn.
Now you just need to pour the stock into the pie via the breathing holes. It'll take a couple of goes as it settles. Leave the pie in the fridge to cool and then serve as part of a low maintenance all meat cold buffet as illustrated below.
