Chef Masterclass: Jesse Dunford Wood's Gala pie

Few things are more British than a pork pie. It takes humble ingredients – fatty pork, jelly made from bones and pastry made with lard or suet – and (when
properly made) transforms them into something simultaneously delicious and substantial.

It is the best-known member of a family of ‘raised’ pies – Jane Grigson’s English Food gives recipes for Cheshire pork and apple pie, game, chicken or rabbit pie, veal, ham and egg pie, and raised mutton pies – that take their generic name from the hot water crust pastry that is raised, still warm, with the fingers around the side of the pie mould. 

The pork pie has a close, slightly smarter, relative: the gala pie, distinguished by the inclusion of hard-boiled eggs. Nobody is sure where the name ‘gala’ originates, but one idea is that it was enjoyed (along with copious ales) at miners’ galas, at which a plain old pork pie might have seemed mundane.

The commercially produced gala pie is made in a long loaf tin: ingeniously, to make sure each slice features a perfect slice of egg, it contains what is known in the trade as a ‘long egg’. The process involves separating a lot of eggs, then – using various gauges of tubing – cooking a hollow cylinder of egg white, then cooking it again with the yolk in the middle. YouTube has several instructive videos on the subject, should you feel the urge.

Jesse Dunford Wood, chef-patron at The Parlour, in Kensal Rise, prefers a simpler method: hard-boiling the eggs, then trimming their ends and pushing them tightly together in the middle of his pork mixture. “They need to be trimmed by a ridiculous amount,” he says, “but the leftovers make a lovely egg salad. 

His pork comes from Mary Holbrook at Sleight Farm, near Bath – “she brings in half a pig with her goats’ cheeses every couple of weeks” – and Dunford-Wood breaks down the carcass himself, reserving the fatty belly for his pies. Half the meat is chopped, the rest minced, then it is seasoned with mustard seeds and herbs. He includes a handful of whole pistachios, which have a jewel-like effect in the finished pie.

The pastry (you can microwave the flour, to help maintain its heat) needs to be just cool enough to handle. “If you’re quick, the pastry from the lid will still be warm enough to roll once you’ve filled the pie,” says Dunford-Wood. Then half the pie mix goes in, with a hollow for the eggs, then the rest of the filling. “You need to overfill the pie with the filling because there will be a lot of melted fat once it’s cooked.”

Once cooked and drained of fat, the pie needs to be solidified with jelly, using the same holes in the lid from which the fat was drained. Instead of the traditional meat jelly, Dunford-Wood uses a simple jelly made with cloudy apple juice and gelatine, which he describes as “a surprising foil to all that pork, egg and pastry”. 

Once set and rested, Dunford-Wood slices it carefully, taking care not to damage the easily chipped corners. He serves it as a starter, at room temperature, with home-pickled vegetables to add crunch and bite. A gala in The Parlour, you might say.