These easy pork pies use shop-bought pastry, but if you fancy making your own, you’re more than welcome! You can easily customise these if you want to mix it up a bit by adding in onions, eggs or sauces!
Ingredients:
Ready-made shortcrust or water pastry
1 tbsp butter
1 onion
100g bacon
250g pork mince
1 garlic clove
1 egg
30g breadcrumbs
Why not pick up your meat from one of our producers here.
Method:
Begin by preparing the individual elements: finely chop the onion and bacon and grate the garlic. Heat the butter over a low heat and add the onions for around five minutes to soften. Tip the rest of the ingredients for the filling into a large bowl and mix into a large meatball, the easiest way to do this is by hand, but if the thought of touching it all makes you a little squeamish, use a large plastic spatula or wooden spoon.
Once combined, divide the mix into six equal balls – if you want to add any fun extras, like a pickled onion, a boiled egg or something like cranberry/apple sauce, you can do that here by pressing it into the middle of the meatball.
Put the balls in the fridge to chill for an hour.
Preheat the oven to 180 degrees.
Prepare the pastry according to the instructions on the packet (or if you want to make your own, you can by rubbing butter and flour together to form bread crumbs and then adding water to bring it to a dough).
The pastry will want to be around the thickness of a £1 coin, cut out six circles using either a pastry shape cutter or the rim of a glass. Grease a muffin tin and line each of the holes with the pastry bases. With the pastry you have left, cut out six more circles for the pie lids and leave these aside.
Take the meatballs out of the fridge and place each one within the pastry lining before putting the lid on top. Seal the edges using an egg yolk, milk or water and then crimp together and poke a hole in the top. For a golden pastry, make an egg glaze, otherwise, place straight in the oven and bake for 20 minutes.
As hard as it is, leave the pies to completely cool before you start eating them, especially if you have added the optional extras, like sauce. These can then be used for picnics, lunch boxes or just as a snack and can be kept for several days in the fridge.
