So I’ve been a little obsessed lately with the idea of trying to make individual-sized pork pies – the good old English way – in hot water crust pastry, traditional seasonings, and of course, with a quail’s egg in the middle.

My problem for awhile is I couldn’t find quail’s eggs anywhere near where I live, until I ventured out to a local farmer’s market 20 miles away, to find one vendor that happened to have some the time I was there. So, no more excuses, it was time to give this a try!

Full disclosure – I’m not big on the gelatin mixture, so I decided to add apple right into the mixture to add a little more flavor and moisture, and just avoided the gelatin altogether. If you’ve looked at some of the other recipes out there, Paul Hollywood, for example, gives you an apple chutney to make with it. For me, this version was moist enough, though a little more mustard or apple chutney wouldn’t go amiss either!

For baking forms, you could use real pork pie tins, or muffin tins, or I ended up using this Baker’s Pride form with 3-inch holes and with straight sides.

This was my first experience with hot water crust pastry, and it wasn’t really hard, which I half expected it might be a little tricky. You’ve basically got two pans, that get mixed, then mixed together. If it’s tricky at all, it’s getting the pie crusts rolled out and into the tins quickly, while the dough is still warm.

I ended up doing a little patching where I overstretched while getting the pastry into the forms. But this shows you how much extra I left going around the top, so I had enough to get a nice crimp when putting the tops on.

The quail’s eggs worked out great in this sized form, if you have access to them.

A little egg wash before baking, and you get a lovely golden brown color when they come out.

Dress up the finished pies with nice china and silver tea set, and even the humble pork pie makes a nice dish for one’s high tea!

English Pork Pie with Quail's Egg

  • Servings: ~5 3-inch pies
  • Difficulty: intermediate
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Ingredients

    Hot Water Crust Pastry

  • 300 g. all-purpose flour
  • 60 g. bread flour
  • 75 g. unsalted butter
  • 150 ml. water
  • 1 1/2 tsp. salt
  • 90 g. lard

    • Pork Pie Filling

  • 5 quail eggs
  • 3 large shallots or 1 small onion, finely chopped
  • 400 g. ground pork
  • 125 g. bacon (unsmoked streaky bacon, if in the UK), finely chopped
  • ~1/4 of a medium-sized apple (slightly tart, like Pink Lady or Granny Smith)
  • Salt and pepper to taste
  • 1 1/2 tsp. English mustard or whole grain mustard or combo of both, as desired
  • 1/2 – 1 tsp. finely julienned sage
  • Sprinkle of nutmeg
  • 1 egg, beaten, to brush on the pastry before baking

Directions

To make the Pastry: Preheat the oven to 375° F. Use a 3-inch round muffin tin (preferably with straight sides for a more authentic look). In a large bowl, sift together the flours, then die the butter into the flour and rub it into the flour until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs (you can use your fingers to do this).

In a small saucepan, add the water and salt and bring to a boil, then add the lard and stir until the lard is melted. Pour the lard mixture into the flour/butter mixture and stir together to form a dough. You will want to start to work quickly now before the lard cools too much.

Tip the dough onto a floured work surface and work it into a smooth ball. Then roll out the pastry until it’s about 3 mm. thick. Cut into five 15 cm. circles and line your muffin tins, working the dough down into the bottom, patching with extra dough if needed. You should have a good amount of dough around the top edge that you can use to make a nice crimping when you add the top pastry after they’ve been filled.

Then cut out five 10 cm. circles for the lids, using a small piping nozzle if you have one to cut out a small circle in the middle. Roll out the dough more than once as needed to make all of the circles for both bottoms and tops.

Set the lids aside until you’re ready to use them, after the pies have been filled.

To make the Filling: Prepare the quail’s eggs first by soft-boiling them in a saucepan of boiling water for 2 minutes. Be sure to immediately put them in a bowl of ice cold water to stop the cooking. Once cool, peel and set aside.

To prepare the rest of the filling, mix together in a large bowl the rest of your ingredients – pork, chopped bacon, shallot, sage, apple, and mustard, sage, nutmeg and salt and pepper. Make sure all ingredients are well incorporated so you get a little of everything in each bite of each pie.

Put a little of the mixture in the bottom of each of your lined pie forms, place a quail’s egg in the center, then spoon more filling around and on top of it. I filled them full, to have a little hump on the top to support the top of the pastry. It should all fit snugly in the pastry case, around and over the egg.

Brosh the edge of each pie with the beaten egg, then place the lids on top and crimp the edges together to completely seal the pastry together. Brush the rest of the egg all around the top pastry of each pie.

Bake for 40 minutes, then check the color; if the top pastry is getting too dark, put a little tin foil over it and bake another 10 minutes (you want the pastry to be fully cooked through). Cool the pies on a baking rack – may be eaten warm or cold.

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