The filling for these mini pork pies is something like a beautifully seasoned, rustic terrine. The flaky crust adds richness and body as well as its own terrific flavor. The gelled stock gives you even more to savor and makes the pie’s overall texture just that much more interesting. These pies are a bit of work, but you’ll be so proud of the result and your guests will be totally wowed.

What you need to makes 6 pies, serving 6-9 people:

For the pork filling

¾ yellow onion, peeled and sliced into 2-inch chunks
1 lb. pork tenderloin
4½ oz. (about 5 pieces) bacon
1 Tbs finely chopped flat-leaf parsley
2 tsp finely chopped sage
½ tsp salt, more or less to taste
¼ tsp nutmeg
¼ tsp black pepper
Olive oil

For the hot water crust pastry

13¼ oz. (4 cups + 2 Tbs) AP flour
½ tsp salt, optional
3½ oz. (9 Tbs) Crisco
1½ oz. (3 Tbs) butter, plus more for ramekins
1 egg, beaten

For the gelled stock

1 envelope unflavored gelatin
3 tsp chicken stock reduction (or bouillon cubes)

For serving

8 oz. country Dijon (or another bold, interesting) mustard
1 twelve-oz. jar of cornichons

How to do it:

1. Use a food processor to chop the onion finely. Transfer to a large mixing bowl. Slice the pork in half lengthwise and cut it into 2-inch cubes. In 3 batches, place it in the food processor and chop it to small pieces. Be careful! It takes only 1 or 2 single-second pulses; you can very quickly turn it into a smooth paste, and you’re looking for something that is, yes, pasty – but with texture. Add it to the bowl. Use sharp kitchen shears to snip the bacon into small pieces and add them to the bowl. Add the parsley, sage, salt, nutmeg, and pepper, and mix thoroughly (with your hands).
2. Heat a small amount of oil in your smallest sauté pan, and cook a scant tablespoon of the pork mixture until no pink remains. Taste it to check seasoning. Repeat as necessary. Once you’re satisfied, cover the uncooked pork mixture and keep it refrigerated.
3. Mix the flour (and salt) in a large mixing bowl. Place the Crisco, butter, and 5¼ oz. water (2/3 cup) into a small saucepan over medium heat until the Crisco and butter melt, stirring occasionally, about 3 minutes. Increase heat to medium-high and bring the mixture to a boil, about 1 minute. Pour the mixture into the flour and stir it with a wooden spoon until it comes together into a dough. Let the dough rest until it’s no longer too warm to handle, about 3 minutes. Then, knead the dough until it’s smooth, about 2 minutes. Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and refrigerate until it’s just about room temperature, around 30 minutes. Meanwhile, lightly grease 6 six-ounce ramekins with butter.
4. Divide the meat into 6 equal portions, about 5⅜ oz. each. Divide the dough into 6 equal portions, about 3¼ oz. each. Working with one portion of dough at a time (leaving the others loosely wrapped), do this: remove 1 oz.-worth of the dough from the portion and set aside. Roll the remainder into a ⅛-inch-thick circle, about 5½ inches in diameter. Nestle it into a ramekin more-or-less the way you would a pie shell. Fill the shell with one of the pork portions, pushing it down to compact it into the shell. The pork should fill the ramekin right to the top. Roll out the set-aside 1-oz. of dough to a ⅛-inch-thick circle, about 3 inches in diameter. Cut a vent into the center. Paint the edges of the bottom crust’s overhang with egg, lay the top crust on top, seal, and crimp. Brush top crust with egg. Place pie on a baking tray. Repeat for remaining pies.

4. Bake for 40 minutes, or until the interior has come to or surpassed 150°F and the crust is golden brown. Let cool on racks. As the pies cool, the filling will shrink away from the crust. While you’re waiting for this to happen, make the gelled stock.
5. To make the gelled stock, start by putting on a few cups of water to boil. Once the water’s boiling, pour ¼-cup cool tap water into a small mixing bowl. Sprinkle gelatin over it, and wait 1 minute. Then, pour in ¼-cup of boiling water (off heat). Stir until no grains of gelatin remain; be diligent about this. Add more of the was-recently-boiling water to bring the total amount to 2 cups. Add stock reduction and whisk until fully homogenized. With the aid of a funnel, fill each pie with gelled stock. You may not need all the stock. Cover and chill overnight.
6. To remove the pies from their ramekins, place a pie into a flat-bottomed container that is at least as deep as the ramekin is tall. Pour very hot water (110°F) into the container, coming as close as ¼-inch to the lip of the ramekin. Be careful not to get the pie crust wet! Let the pie sit in the water bath for 30-60 seconds, then remove the ramekin from the water and gently twist, pry, and cajole the pie out of the ramekin. If it doesn’t seem willing to budge, don’t force it. Instead, return it to the bath and try again in another minute, or try even hotter (boiling) water.
7. Serve cold, with mustard and cornichons. The pies are also good at room temperature, or warm.

Notes:

If you’re serving these as a main or meat course, you should consider one pie to be a single serving, although you could stretch it to get three servings out of two pies and still feel perfectly generous about the serving size. To do that, you’ll want to quarter the pies. This should be done with a serrated knife on a cutting board, using a gentle sawing motion at first, and then whatever downward pressure you need.  

If you accidentally process the pork to more paste than chop, that’s OK. It’ll still look and taste great.

You can swap out ¼-cup of the AP flour with whole wheat flour. This gives the crust a deeper flavor.

If the pork and the stock are well seasoned, you can get away with having no salt in the crust. It’s quite delicious that way.

You can swap out lard for the Crisco. You can also vary the proportions of Crisco to butter, or even use all of one or the other. Crisco contributes flakiness, and butter contributes flavor.

There was a day when any recipe that required dough to be rolled out gave me the heebie-jeebies. I would dutifully do it, but it always seemed difficult, time consuming, and frustrating. Eventually, I wised up and bought an adjustable rolling pin. It has little discs that raise its edges up above the rolling surface to whatever height you wish, so your dough comes out exactly that thickness. It also came with a rolling mat that has concentric circles under a clear, non-stick plastic coating, so you can see what your diameter is. It’s still a bit of work, rolling dough, but this makes it TONS easier. Many manufacturers make such things; I happen to love the one I bought, so if you’re curious, leave a comment.

Be sure to get a decent overhang of your bottom crust, and full coverage of your top crust, so that you’re able to make a generous, complete, and confident seal with the edges. Otherwise, when you pour in the gelled stock, it will leak out of holes and cracks you weren’t aware of, before filling the pie.

You can make these pies in three 12-oz. ramekins if you wish. You’ll need to start them covered with foil, and after 40 minutes, cover only the edges. Expect them to bake for about 1 hour and 20 minutes when all’s said and done. Instead of ramekins, you can also make these pies in a jumbo muffin tin.

Traditionally, these pies are topped off with a naturally-gelatinous stock. If you’ve made stock before, you probably know that it can gel – either fully or partially – when refrigerated. It depends on how much collagen was in the bones, and how much water you used when making the stock. In any case, if you were to deliberately create a fully-gelled, well-seasoned stock, this is what you’d use for your pies if you were a traditionalist. I’m not; I prefer a softly-gelled stock made with gelatin, because it’s lighter, and “cleaner” tasting. You don’t have to top the pies off, though; you can completely omit this step, although it does add flavor and texture.

Possible additions or substutions to the filling: garlic (3 cloves), ground clove (a pinch), celery (2 stalks), cinnamon (¼ tsp). You could swap out the filling for nearly any kind of savory stew; this crust would make a perfect pot pie.

Mini Pork Pies

Credit for images on this page: Make It Like a Man! Thank you, Kesor. This content was not solicited by anyone, nor was it written in exchange for anything. In doing research for it, I relied on Martha Stewart, Hedge Combers, and Paul Hollywood for inspiration.

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