Pork Pye

This was served as part of the first course at the Ymir 2023 feast.

Introduction

Individual pork pies in hot water crust, filled with wine-braised pork, dates, currants, egg yolks, and ginger. Small meat pies with sweet-savory spiced fillings are among the most recognizable dishes in medieval English cooking, and this version — based on the “pyes of paris” recipe from A Noble Boke Off Cookry — is a good example of the type. Similar recipes for chewets appear in Robert May’s The Accomplisht Cook nearly two centuries later, suggesting the same type of pie was consistently baked.

Source

A Noble Boke Off Cookry Ffor a Prynce Houssolde or Eny Other Estately Houssolde (1468)

To mak pies of paris. To mak pyes of pairis tak and smyt fair buttes of pork and buttes of vele and put it to gedure in a pot with freshe brothe and put ther to a quantite of wyne and boile it tille it be enoughe then put it in to a treene vesselle and put ther to raw yolks of eggs pouder of guinger sugur salt and mynced dates and raissins of corans and mak a good thyn paiste and mak coffyns and put it ther in and bak it welle and serue it.

Discussion

• The cooks made 144 individual hand-formed hot water crust pies for the feast. This was, in hindsight, a terrible plan from a labor standpoint — it took two to three people half a day to form and fill them all. The pies were tasty, but for future feasts the labor cost of individual coffins at this scale needs to be weighed carefully against the option of larger pies cut into portions.
• The hot water crust was made in multiple batches so it could be rolled and shaped while still warm — it becomes unworkable as it cools. The filling was cooked ahead and cooled to room temperature before filling, both for food safety (the egg yolks are in the filling) and because hot filling in warm pastry is a structural disaster.
• The original calls for both pork and veal; I used pork only, simmered in broth and wine until fork-shreddable. The sweet-savory filling with dates, currants, and ginger is characteristic of the period and landed well with my diners, who have all had medieval feasts before and are comfortable with the combination.
• Since the filling is fully cooked before it goes into the pastry, the pastry itself is the determining factor for doneness — the pies are done when the crust is golden brown.

Sources