Game pie

Last night (see previous post!) we welcomed in the new year with pie. Not just any pie, a behemoth of a game meat pie served with honey mustard roast carrots and pickled red cabbage. Winter on a plate! (Convenient as I sit here typing in a reindeer jumper in 14 degrees C IN MY LIVING ROOM. Freeeeeezing! We're also too tight to actually put out heating on much though so probs my own fault)

Anyway. I didn't take a picture cos I was too excited, and also the leftovers today aren;t the most photogenic thing in the world. Trust me though, this one's deeee-lish. I made the recipe up: feel free to substitute whatever meat you would like. However, I would stipulate you need some type of fatty cured meat (bacon, sausage meat) mixed in or it will be a little dry and bland. This makes a hand raised pie similar to a pork pie in construction and application (eat at room temperature, pretty solid, ruddy amazing with chutneys and picks but also just as home on your dinner plate). It made enough to fill my 2 lb loaf tin and would serve 6 normal peeps or 4 hungry ones. Vegetarians look away now.

Filling:

• 6 rashers streaky bacon
• 350g venison (casserole type, not fancy steaks, mince would be fine)
• 2-3 tbsp port, madeira, sherry etc (just one, not all three!)
• 1 tbsp pokey mustard (english, dijon etc)
• salt and pepper
• 6 sage leaves, good sprig of rosemary and thyme
• 250-300g game of your choice (I used a mix of grouse, rabbit and pheasant) in chunks.

Pastry:

• 200ml water
• 70g butter (unsalted)
• 100g lard
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 500g plain flour

Jelly (controversial but in my opinion essential, you can leave it out if you like)

• 2 leaves gelatine
• 1/3 pint stock (from a cube is fine, or homemade is also good but will need extra salt)
• slosh of port / sherry etc as before.

Method:

1. Make the filling. I don;t have a food processor so used a knife and a board to finely chop the bacon, venison and herbs together, and mixed in the mustard, booze and seasoning. This forms the kind of sausage meaty type of bit of your filling. The chunks of game will be squished into this as you go along to create a pie with a nice rustic meaty texture.
2. Make the pastry: Traditional hot water crust has only got lard and not butter; feel free to use that combo if you like. I personally think butter improves the pastry flavour and makes it a bit tastier. But it's up to you! Put the water, salt and fat(s) into a pan (bigger than you think you'll need as you need to fit the flour in too) and heat until the fat has melted. Plonk in the flour, and mix until it starts to make a ball. Then, turn it out onto a worktop or board (it'll be a bit hot, be careful!) and knead lightly for a minute or two until a silky ball of wonder has been achieved.
3. Next, place a piece of baking parchment into your 2lb loaf tin so it fits over the long sides and hangs out over the edge (this forms a handle so you can lift out your pie) and use about 3/4 of your pastry to squidge into the tin, making sure it comes right up the sides and there are no holes. 
4. Preheat your oven to 200 degrees C. Now squidge about 1/3 of your sausagey filling into the base of your pastry lined tin, then push a few chunks of meat in. repeat until it's full right up to the top, then squidge the last bit of pastry (hopefully it's still warm!) into a rectangle and put it on top, pinching to seal the edges. Make a big steam hole in the top (you can decorate it if you like with shapes form any extra pastry scraps and egg wash if you so desire).
5. Bake at 200 for 1/2 hour, then 170 for a further 1 to 1 1/2 hours until a meat thermometer reads 80 degrees C (or just an hour and a quarter if you don;t want to faff!). Remove from the oven and let it cool for about 10 minutes, then either jelly, or don't jelly. I recommend you jelly...!
1. if you don't want to jelly, just pop the pie out of the tin and onto a rack over a tray to catch any juice, then poke a couple of holes in the bottom of the pastry. This lets the meat juices out and as it cools will stop the pastry sogging. Don't be alarmed if you get a lot of juice!
2. If you do want to jelly, soak the gelatine in cold water for a couple of mins, meanwhile blitzing te stock and booze in the microwave for a minute so it's hot. Then add the gelatine (squeezed of excess water) into the hot stock, and pout carefully (a piping nozzle makes an excellent funnel!) into the steam hole in the pie. Go slowly and you ay not need the whole amount.
3. Cool before eating - if you add jelly it should really be left overnight before demolishing or you may get juice running out when you cut it.