Just to wind back a couple of pages ref: pork pies...

Made four of them yesterday with finely diced pork shoulder and belly pork and have just scoffed the first for my dinner (not lunch) this lunchtime, with Branston and a slavver of cranberry - even though I say so myself, it was bloody lovely.

I ended up using the silcone deep moulds and resulted in a pie approx 3 inches in diameter and 2.5 inches high, a decent meal in itself, but a couple of notes made during the process, I didn't get the gelatine right and the pies filled with pork fat which I drained but failed to fill properly with gelatine, and the pies had to be taken out of the moulds, brushed with egg and stood in the oven for the last ten minutes to properly brown the sides off.

Next time they will be perfect, in the meantime I've got three left

Just leave 'em in the shell, knock the back off and replace like a vol au vent lid

We'll be having Gloucester Old Spot loin (I did a swap - 5kgs of fish for 5kgs of pork) for our Christmas dinner (at about 3pm, all the pubs in Winky give you your first drink free, so with 6 pubs, I'll spend nowt tomorrow). Starting with a plate of smoked halibut and finishing off with a selection of local cheeses (including Somerset brie), sourced from the various artisanal cheesemakers we still seem to have round here. I'll open a Chablis and a Rioja, both will get supped, along with a bottle of Warre's Cavadinha 1996 (that won't probably see then end of tomorrow).

The great thing is, Emma don't drink

Maybe you could point out where I said that?

I offered the opinion that most fish dishes go better with white than red. In my experience that's the case. That doesn't mean that there aren't reds that go with fish, or that all whites are great with fish.

Maybe you should read more carefully before jerking your knee?

Oh - and Merry Christmas.

Merry Xmas to you and your family

and my knees are fine, thanks anyway

the oysters will be served with a fine Carcassonne rosé and the rest with a light Gaillac red

Sorry I never got back to you in time about the moulds.
I would personally not bother with the belly pork so you wouldn't have the fatty issue then. Maybe substitute it for a ham hock finely diced or minced.
You can also make pork pies in an old fashioned way by moulding your hot water pastry around a glass jar then tying double thickness grease proof around it and securing with some string. Then place ( well throw) your meat mix into the pie and then crimp your lid on top.
Thats how I made mine the other year. It really gives them that rustic old fashioned look

As this is the unofficial food thread I've just made a superb shepherds pie.

Ingredients -:
1, Asde bag of extra special baby sprouts, bacon and garlic butter tossed in the wok then lined the bottom of the oven baking dish.
2, Onion, chopped, softened in wok and a 1lb of butchers steak mince added and browned for 5 minutes.
3, Tin of toms added.
4, A teaspoon of red chillies in white wine vinegar added.
5, A jar of Homepride Shepherds Pie sauce added.
6, All contents mixed and spooned out over the top of sprouts and bacon.
7, 5lb of Albert Rooster spuds boiled and mashed with butter and milk then covered carefully over top of aforementioned mix.
8, Creative use of back of fork for ridged effect.
9, Red Leicester cheese grated over the top of spuds.
10, 170 degees in a pre-heated oven for 50 minutes.

It was a visible masterpiece and didn't arf taste good!

yep, I agree, my next attempt will not require belly pork at all and will concentrate more on getting the gelatine into the pie and perhaps not squashing the meat down so firmly, all in all they were good, perhaps too much Allspice and not enough pepper, problem with the gelatine and the meat was too dark when cooked (not pink like a pork pie) but the pastry was spot on - overall it did end up like a meat pie with the meat being coincidently pork, rather than a pork pie, if you know what I mean.

The glass jar method is mentioned in the Hairy Bikers recipe and it was only at the last minute that I realised that I didn't have any glass jars

Couple of points mate:

If it's beef, it's a cottage pie

WTF is Homepride Shepherds Pie sauce

1lb of meat to 5lb of spuds? How deep was the dish?

Red Leicester FFS?

Well it tasted good Dave.
Didn't use all the spud.
Red Leicester is quality on top. Was gonna go for mature cheddar but fancied experimentation.

Speaking of ready made sauces & powdered mixes etc, I was sent to Asda early this morining with a list of a few things, one of which was "Casserole Mix" - the wife was making some home made vegetable soup, whizz up a load of veggies in a food processor and boil, hey presto, soup.

I have to add here that after 32 years of listening to her voice and accent I have succesfully managed to tune out most of it and so when she was instructing me what to buy and pinning a ten pound note to my sleeve so I didn't lose it, I'm sure I heard her say something about it being a "mix" that was at the end of the vegetable aisle, I did, I definitely did, I think.

So I get to Asda and sure enough at the end of the vegetable aisle there is a stand with those packets of powdered mixes that you get for spag-bol and shepherds pie and stuff, but not one called "Casserole Mix"

I went to the sauce aisle and found the full stand of all of those jars of mix and packets of powdered mixes but nothing called "casserole mix", so I rang her up and told her.

"Its in the vegetable aisle" she insisted
"No its not" I replied
"It bloody is" she insisted, starting to sound like one of those bints from Geordie Shore (the accent comes out when the temper rises)
"No its not" I risked, "Ive looked"
"You haven't looked hard enough..." and then I phased her out.

I came home without the casserole mix, got a bollacking but didn't hear any of it.

Later on this afternoon we're sat round the table with her sister and the bro-in-lor and they're rabbiting away in their language about how they make this here vegetable soup that we're all eating, and then the penny dropped...

"You know that casserole mix ?" I said, "Its not a powder is it, its a packet of mixed vegetables chopped up ready for a casserol dish isn't it ?"

They gave me that look that Miss Trenholme used to give me at Brudenell Infants School when I couldn't get past page two of Janet and John.

I won't get sent out for shopping again for a while.

Plan worked.