I have a friend who is on a strict keto diet. I often make recipes that are naturally keto friendly or adapting ingredients to make the recipe fit the requirements.
Hearty beef or lamb stews are easy, provided you leave out the root vegetables. Chilli beef is always a winner!
My friend is very partial to pork pies. So they are definitely on the “to bake” list! Now pork pies are notoriously tricky to make with hot water pastry. And if you hand raise the pastry, that’s really challenging!
You need to adapt the pastry with keto friendly ingredients. And it’s still a hot water crust pastry which is more difficult to handle than ordinary pastry. However this recipe doesn’t require hand raising. Simply bake in large muffin molds, or small pie molds as I did.
The keto pastry is not that difficult to handle and the resulting crust is quite delicious!
Ingredients
Filling
2 rashers bacon
300g pork shoulder
4 spring onions or 1 medium onion
A small handful each of thyme and sage
1/2 teaspoon chilli paste or chilli powder
Salt and pepper
Hot water crust pastry
200 grams almond flour
200 grams oat bran
1 ½ teaspoon guar or xanthan gum
1 teaspoon salt
Ground black pepper
60 grams butter
60 grams lard
200 grams water
1 free range egg
Jelly
1 gelatine platinum leaf
125 mls chicken or vegetable stock
1 free range egg, beaten, for glazing.
Method
Butter the pork pie molds well. Large muffin molds work well.
Chop the bacon rashers and the pork shoulder roughly, and put in a food processor. Add the spring onion or onion also roughy chopped, and the thyme, sage, chilli and salt and pepper.
Blitz in the food processor, until the ingredients are combined. Don’t over process. You want a pork mince, not a paste.
Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C fan forced.
Meanwhile, make the pastry. Mix the almond flour, oat bran, guar or xanthan gum, salt and pepper in a large bowl.
Lightly whisk the egg, make a well in the centre, put in the egg and mix in. Don’t worry if you can’t mix in properly – you will get clumps.
Put the butter, lard and water in a saucepan over a low heat and cook until the butter and lard are fully melted.
Turn the heat up and bring the liquid to the boil, and as soon as it starts boiling, carefully pour all the liquid into the flour mixture. You will need to stir everything together quite quickly while the mixture is still warm. Make sure everything is combined.
This mixture will make 6 pies, so divide the mixture into 6 large balls for the pie bottoms and 6 smaller balls for the pie lids.
Press each of the larger balls of dough into the molds, pushing the dough down into the molds and up the sides. Make sure there are no holes.
Divide the pork mix into 6 portions and put each portion inside the pastry bottoms. Leave a space at the top, for the jelly.
Using your fingers, stretch the small balls of dough into circles to fit the top of the pies for the lids.
Brush some beaten egg around the edges of the pies. Place the dough lids on top of the pies, and gently press all around the edges to stick the lids and bottoms together.
Brush the pork pie tops with more beaten egg, and make a hole in the centre of the pies.
Put the pies in the oven and bake for 45 minutes. Remove from the oven, and egg wash the tops again. Put back in the oven for a further 10 minutes.
Take the pork pies from the oven and allow them to cool inside the molds.
Meanwhile, dissolve the gelatine leaf in the hot stock. Pour the stock slowly inside the pork pies through the hole in the lids until they are full. Let the stock soak in for a moment, then pour in a little more stock.
Put the pies in the fridge for a few hours for the jelly to set.
Serve at room temperature with plenty of your favourite chutney or relish, and maybe a few pickles on the side.
The Quirk and the Cool 