Pork & Venison Pies

Ingredients
For the pastry:
500 g flour
200 ml water
120 g butter
70 g lard
1 level teaspoon salt

For the filling:
1kg pork shoulder, finely diced (including fat)
250g venison, finely diced
350g venison mince or skin a packet of M&S venison sausages
200g smoked dry cured streaky bacon with a decent bit of fat, finely diced
tsp ground mace
1 tsp ground white pepper
tsp ground nutmeg


For the chestnut stuffing:

1 bag of chestnuts, roasted and chopped small.
tin merchant gourmet chestnut puree
125g finely diced chestnut mushrooms
100g finely diced shallots
50g butter
Salt to taste.

For the jelly:

bottle decent red (I used shiraz)
1 tsp whole black peppercorns
1 lump of fresh ginger
1 or 2 fresh bay leaves, bruised
1 cinnamon stick
fresh unwaxed lemon
orange
A few cloves
1 tsp cardamom pods, bruised
1tsp honey
(optional: a glug of brandy)
2 packets of gelatin


Method

1. Place the flour into a large bowl and set aside.
2. Place the water, butter, lard and salt into a saucepan and heat over a medium heat,
stirring as the fat melts. Once it comes to the boil, take the pan off the heat and
pour it the bowl with the flour.
3. Stir the mixture with a wooden spoon until all the ingredients are combined. Cover
the bowl with a clean tea towel and leave to rest and cool for 1 hour.
4. After 1 hour, turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and flatten into a
rectangle.
5. Fold the dough into thirds by taking one side of the dough into the centre and
pressing down with your fingers.
6. Then lift up the other side of the dough and bring it over the top. Press down again
with your fingers.
7. Flatten the dough out again into a rough rectangle and repeat the same process
once more.
8. Flatten the dough into a rectangle and place onto a baking tray. Cover it with
clingfilm and rest in the fridge for 30 minutes to firm up.
(Stolen from http://gourmetdough.com/pastry/how-to-make-hot-water-crust-
pastry )

9. Melt the butter in a large frying pan, and saut the shallots and mushrooms for 10
minutes, until the shallots are clear and the mushrooms have shrunk.
10. Add the diced chestnuts and saut for a further 5 minutes.
11. Add the chestnut puree, mix well, season and remove from heat.


12. Set the oven at 180C/gas mark 4.
13. Place the pork, venison and bacon in a large bowl, and add the seasonings. Mix
together by hand, squeezing the mixture until everything is just about evenly
distributed.
14. Take a lump of pastry and shape into a pie base shape these can be pretty much
any size you like. Mine tend to be about 3 to 4 across and 2 or 3 deep. The
amount of pastry above usually makes 6 or 7 fairly, um, rustic pies. If you dont
want to faff about with shaping the pies by hand (which is a bit tedious), you could
also just get a big muffin pan and just squish the pastry in to line. Or if youre fancy
enough to have several pie moulds you could use those. Or a cake tin to make one
huge pie-cake. If youre hand-raising your pies, I find it easiest to do them one-by-
one, avoiding any catastrophic structural failures. Leave a bit to one side for lids.
15. Take whats left of the pastry and roll out to about thick, then use a pint glass
or biscuit cutter to cut out lid shapes.
16. Score a cross in the middle of each lid. This will be where you pour the jelly in once
they are cooked, so it doesnt need to be large. or so across.
17. Take a tablespoon or so of the chestnut mixture and plop gently in the bottom of
your pie crust.
18. Take a handful of the pie mixture and pop it on top of the chestnut gubbins.
19. Use your fingers or a fork to crimp the lid on to the base. This whole pie shaping
business can be a bit of a faff, so I suggest looking at youtube for instructional pie-
raising videos.
20. Place all your pies on a baking sheet, and use a beaten egg or a bit of milk to glaze.
21. Bake for an hour for the smaller pies, an hour and a half for a big pie.
22. Pop on a wire rack until theyre cool enough to refridgerate.

23. Pop all the mulled wine aromatics into a square of muslin and tie.
24. Pour the wine into a small saucepan, add the muslin pouch and the citrus (give
them a little squeeze into the pan first), then simmer for about 15 minutes.
25. Remove the muslin, and mix in the honey and brandy (to taste).
26. Decant the wine into a jug and gently stir in a couple of packets of powdered
gelatin (about twice the amount suggested on the gelatin packets).
27. Allow to cool for 30 mins.


28. The tricky part: get a plastic drinking straw or pipette, and use to carefully add the
mulled wine to the pies via the hole you scored into the lids. If your pies have holes
in them, you can make a sort of cup for them with tinfoil or clingfilm (this is a
colossal ball-ache, but is probably inevitable the first few times).
29. When you cant fit any more liquid into the pie, place in the refrigerator for a few
hours or overnight.
30. If you want to be ridiculously festive, gild the pies with some edible gold leaf.