at Thu, 07 Oct 2004 00:04:50 GMT in
>,
(Jana Cole) wrote :

>On 06 Oct 2004 18:07:32 GMT, ospam (DJS0302) wrote:
>
>
>>Are you sure that recipe is correct? I can't imagine putting that much
>>oil in a pie crust,... So if you used 2 cups of flour you would use 2/3
>>cup of
>>shortening or lard.
>
>I agree. I felt the same way about the amount of oil. However, when I
>reduced the oil, the crust was too flaky for these meat pies. They
>fell apart.
>
You've had a lot of recommendations to use lard. However, lard does wonders
for the *texture* of a pie crust (i.e. makes it more flaky), but not that
much for the *flavour* of the crust (stays pretty bland) Shortening, btw,
also makes the flavour bland and the texture isn't as good as lard anyway.

For good *flavour*, use butter. A classic ratio is for 2 cups flour, use 1
cup butter. Half butter, half lard yields high flakiness and good flavour.

But part of your problem is sturdiness. In that situation, an all-butter
crust is sturdier than one made with lard. Or you could use a crust like
that for Melton Mowbray pork pie (a great school lunch pie - I had them all
the time as a kid) which is designed to be sturdy and hold up under rougher
treatment. The recipe at this site:

http://www.greatbritishkitchen.co.uk...rayporkpie.htm

shows up all over the place and is a good place to start. You don't have to
use the crust for pork pie only - you could wrap it round almost anything.

Hope this helps.

--
Alex Rast

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