Lost in Translation

I’ve just been reading about empanadas, a Portuguese pie. This involved my standard internet search, and with one press of the translation button I had a page of pictures and information. I think I’m slightly better informed as a result, though it’s a sketchy article and the translation isn’t great.

I only mention it because of this gem.

“in England there is a pie of chicken and mushrooms , and the famous Melton Mowbray Pie, stuffed with minced pork and collagen.”

Not sure what to say about that, but it’s definitely not going to win any prizes for copywriting.

 

Cheshire Pie Company – Pork and Caramelised Onion Chutney

Or, to give it its full title – Pork and Mrs Darlington’s Caramelised Onion Chutney pie.

Brockleby’s Stilton Pork Pie was a revelation. The Cheshire Pie Company Pork and Bury Black Pudding Pie continued my conversion to Pork Pies With Other Things.

Was this the pie to confirm my conversion, or was it going to renew my prejudice?

Well, let’s see.

First, I’d like to say that Mrs Darlington’s Caramelised Onion Chutney was excellent. Not only that, but after reading the website the story behind the company, I’d like to put myself up for adoption. I think I’ve had found my spiritual home. Not only that, but tales of surplus eggs being turned into lemon curd brought back memories of childhood, when my parents would spend all day making lemon curd when we had lots of eggs.

Second, I’d like to say that I like the pies from the Cheshire Pie Company. This was no exception. The pastry was crisp and golden, with a star-shaped hole, which was much more harmonious to the eye than the asymmetrical holes of the previous pie. It even had authentic artisan spillage from boiling over in the oven.

But, regrettably, the experience of cutting into the pie reminded me of lancing a boil.

As you can see from the pictures, there is a well of brown gloop in the middle of the pie, and although I know it’s excellent onion chutney, the first impression is one of horror.

Whether it’s inbuilt from the days of my stone age ancestors (along with the other survival mechanisms like fear of sabre-toothed tigers) or whether it’s more to do with the low quality of past pies I have eaten, I don’t know. I just know that I could feel myself recoil.

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That’s a shame, because the actual eating experience was excellent. Great meat, great chutney. It all held together well, despite the impression of oozing that it gave, and it was a pleasure to eat. The meat maybe lacked a little texture, but as I’ve said, these championship winning pies often do have dense fillings. What concerns me about the filling is the pink centre.

It’s supposed to be uncured pork according to the website, and uncured pork is supposed to be cooked through. That means it should be grey, like a Melton pie. Again, it’s a survival mechanism – I’m not keen on undercooked pork.

It’s up with the black pudding pie in terms of flavour, and better in terms of looks, but I’m not keen on the gloop or the pink bits.

After a struggle with various aspects of the pie, it’s 6.5/10, simply because of the way it’s put together and the pink bits.

If I want caramelised onion relish I’ll buy myself a jar and serve it on the side.

 

 

 

 

 

Cheshire Pie Company – Pork and Bury black pudding

I like pork pies and I like black pudding. I doubt that either of those facts will surprise you. The question is not whether I like the two items, but will I like them when they are baked together in a pie?

I surprised myself by loving Brockleby’s Stilton Pork Pie , after years of scepticism about such mixes. Will the next pie carry on the process of enlightenment? Or will it confirm my view that not all things are meant to be mixed in a pie?

First impressions were favourable, apart from the asymmetric look to the holes in the crust. I suppose when you are trying to identify a pie you eventually run out of ways to do it.

Great golden crust and it cut well. The filling was firm and, instead of the speckled effect I was expecting there was a band of black pudding across the middle. At that point I began to question the likely eating experience. Black pudding mixed with the pork would be Pork and black pudding. This was more like Pork with black pudding.

I don’t know about you but I have certain ways of eating things. Anything with garden peas is “peas first”. Anything with soft egg yolks is generally eaten by eating all the white and then putting the soft yolk in whole. It’s not elegant, or, I confess, normal, but it works.

These are both hang overs from youthful dislike of the particular food. I can avoid beetroot in all its malignant forms, but unless you want to look like a fussy eater you can’t avoid peas or runny eggs.

At a slightly lower level of food fixation, I have a thing about separating layers. Custard slices, for instance, have to be dismantled then consumed as two parts – bottom and custard followed by top and icing. As for those little pink wafer biscuits, they are a delight from childhood which has become a challenge in my early dotage.

My worry, as I looked the pork pie and black pudding layers, was that I would develop a new eating disorder, peeling the pork layer from the black pudding.

Pork and Bury Black pudding

Cheshire Pie Company

Fortunately I sidestepped the problem by taking a big bite. The combination, when taken together in layers, was pretty good. It wasn’t quite so much of a revelation as the Stilton [pie, but it was still one of those mouthfuls you remember. I think it would spoil things to dismantle the pie; it needs to be taken as a mouthful.

The black pudding isn’t as spicy as I would like if I was eating it on its own, but it’s well-balanced as part of the pie, so I forgive it. Much more spice and it would start to dominate.

It’s a difficult one to place. It isn’t a big hitter in taste terms but if I was looking for a pie to eat regularly I’d probably prefer this pie to one that contained high levels of Stilton. It’s a bit like saying a Ferrari is the best car in engineering terms but a Volkswagen is more practical for shopping.

8/10

 

Brockleby’s Stilton Pork Pie

 

They say that you take the first bite with your eyes. If that’s the case, you may be dubious about taking a second bite of this pie, as it looks very much like something that has been at the back of a student fridge for a term.

I was already approaching the pie with suspicion. I like pork pies, and I like Stilton cheese. However, as I’ve mentioned before, I’m not necessarily a fan of mixing things. Pepper, pork and jelly is really all you need. I’m prepared to accept that apple can be quite palatable after a few recent pies, but I remain to be convinced about the rest.

So, to the review. My initial impression was somewhere between apprehension and revulsion. Fortunately I’m not easily deterred in matters of eating, and the first proper bite set my mind at rest. At the risk of sounding like a food writer, it was exquisite. It was like nothing I’d ever tasted before, creamy and meaty and leaving a distinct impression that it was biting back. And for once, having being disappointed many times before by pork pies and cheese, it was beautifully balanced.

That, of course, is what you would expect from Brockleby’s a Melton-based pie maker with a history of winning prizes in pie competitions.

As good as it was, I didn’t notice a choir of angels tap-dancing on my tonsils, so it’s not ten.

There were also a couple of places where it missed perfection.

Obviously flavour was great – I don’t think that could be improved on. pastry was pretty good, quite crisp and another example of great flavour.

Brockleby’s Stilton Pork Pie

The meat was solid, as it usually is in a pie from a prize-winning baker. Dare I say that solid meat lacks a bit of texture?  It was good to bite into, but there was no shading of texture. Another point was that holding a table knife in my arthritic hand, the pie was difficult to cut, due to this solidity, and having made a misplaced cut I had to do some nifty knife work to ensure there was no argument about portion size. (Having cut mismatched halves I then cut each one in half again to produce one large and one small quarter for each of us – handy tip in case you are ever caught in this dilemma).

Are those the only faults?

Well, probably. At £3 it’s not the cheapest of pies, but it does deliver great value. It’s no oil painting, that’s for sure, but once you get used to the idea that it’s topped by exactly the right amount of Stilton (from Webster’s) rather than a heap of mould, it’s not a problem.

If you were to eat it in the dark you’d be happy to give it a 9. Allowing for the fact that it’s by far the best pie I’ve tasted so far in these tests and it’s converted me to eating pies with cheese in them, I’m going to stick with that.

9/10

 

(Sorry about the poor quality of the photography – day light was going when we ate the first one and we damaged the crust of the second one when we took it to the farm, which cut down on the angles I could use).

 

Three way pork pie test

I couldn’t make my mind up in the supermarket, so we’ve ended up with a veritable buffet of TESCO mini-sized pork pies. I think these are the ones that used to be called bite-sized, but that’s a stretch even for me, despite the big mouth and bad manners.

There is Pork and Apple, Pork and Pickle and New York Deli.

The Pork and Apple, is made with diced apples, according to the front label, and apple sauce and diced apple according to the back of the packet. It’s a very good mass-produced pie. The pastry has a bit of a crunch to it, the meat has a good flavour, there is a little jelly and when you’ve finished one, you would like another. Compared to the Sainsbury’s Pork and Apple pie I tested previously this one scored equally on flavour but lost a bit on texture. It has jelly and a peppery after-taste, which are plus points,  but I didn’t think the pastry or overall experience was quite as good. But as I say, it did have jelly.

For that reason I think a 6/10 is fair.

Take that as a lesson Sainsbury’s – you leave out the jelly at your peril.

TESCO Pork and Apple Pie

TESCO Pork and Apple Pie

 

The Pork and Pickle was better than I expected, though that isn’t saying much. The taste suffered from the Branston style pickle – I’m now a convert to a wider range of chutneys and standard Branston seems a bit basic. Even when I was a Branston fan I never really liked it in a pie.  I’m not even sure how I really feel about any chutney included in a pie. On a pie yes, but in one? Really?

To add to my annoyance the pack includes a totally superfluous notice telling me that the pie is ready to eat.

The pastry was OK. The flavour was not improved by the pickle, and nor was the texture which was too soft. I couldn’t see any jelly (though the ingredients list include pork gelatine) but the pickle, to be fair, did add the moisture that the jelly would have done. On balance, it could have been a lot worse. I remember some harrowing pies in the past when I first tried pork and pickle, but even so, a good pork pie with a nice pickle on the side is always going to beat a mongrel mixture like this.

If I put my prejudice about pickle in pies to one side (though I’m not sure I have too when you look at the blog title) it’s still only 4.5/10.

TESCO Pork and Pickle Pies

TESCO Pork and Pickle Pies

Finally, the New York Deli pork pie. It was news to me that there was such a thing. Nobody in New York appears when I searched the internet for it. The only mention of a New York Deli in the first two pages of a Google search features a chicken pot pie, which is not the same thing at all. The majority of mentions are about the TESCO pie, including someone on a chat forum praising them in relation to “turgid” ordinary pork pies.

There is also a rebuttal by someone else, pointing out the pie’s poor showing at the British Pie Awards. I’m going to write a post on the content of chat rooms one day – working title Knee Deep in Nerds.

I’m divided on the issue. The flavour of pastrami comes through and I suppose it could be pleasant, I’m just not sure. I don’t see what link there is between pork pie and pastrami or pork pies and New York. By all means make a pie with pork, mustard and beef, but why call it a pork pie?

The competition entry pictured here at the British Pie Awards is a far cry from a pork pie with a bit of flavouring. I can admire a pie with a massive streak of beef down the middle, but I’m not so sure about a weaselly snack pie with a suggestion of beef. And then we come to the gherkin…

In the first pie I sampled the large piece of gherkin came as a bit of a shock. Even now the taste has subsided I still feel the betrayal. The second wasn’t much better, it had lightly smaller pieces but retained a sense that something bad was about to happen.

Crust was OK, texture of filling OK, even the flavour, though I struggled slightly. It is more to do with marketing than a natural marriage of flavours. The massive slap of gherkin, though, that has cost you TESCO.

4/5 for an unnatural pie. It was not as bad as I thought, but then the gherkin hit.

Can you see the gherkin?

New York Deli Pork Pie

The Control Pie

 

This is the control pie, the Pork Farms Pork Pie.

There was something inevitable about the choice, as it is both local to Nottingham and widely available. It may not be the most cultured of pies, but it’s the pie of a thousand lay-bys and service stations – bought in quantity, eaten by people in a hurry and reliably tasty.

The baker’s shop pie, with golden crust and pink meat, may be the one I remember from childhood, but this is the one that I remember from my time on the road.

According to the TESCO website this is “Britain’s favourite branded pork pie”, though they do qualify that by pointing out that claim is based on sales. To me that makes it Britain’s top-selling branded pie – talk of “favourite” is just the idle hope of the marketing department.

As the control pie I will be giving it five out of ten and marking all others accordingly.

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It squats there in the wrapping when you open it up, a stubby, brown pie with a slight sheen of fat around the sides. If it played rugby you would find it in the front row.

The pastry yields easily to the knife until the bottom, which needs an extra push to crack it. It’s not exactly soft, but it’s definitely not crisp.

The meat is a lovely roast pork colour marbled with fat.  As you would expect, the meat, when chewed, has a good texture.  I would have liked a bit more jelly, but to be fair, I like jelly and will probably say that about most pies.  There was enough jelly, and it isn’t fair for me to mark a pie down on the basis of a personal preference. Flavour of the filling was very good, with a good savoury flavour and a good peppery kick at the end of it.

So, to summarise – it’s an enjoyable pie. It has a good flavour with middle-of-the –road seasoning and when you pick one up you know what you are getting.

Mark: 5/10