We read up lots of recipes, and came up with a sort of hybrid recipe of our own - the meat we used was shoulder, and we just cut this into small cubes, rather than mincing it.
The meat was seasoned with ground mace, mustard powder, a tiny bit of cayenne, salt and pepper and fresh chopped sage and thyme.
For the pastry we used Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstalls recipe for hot water crust - this is made with half butter and half lard which seems to add a bit more flavour than just using lard.
The tins were lined, and then packed with the seasoned pork.
We had to guess a bit on the cooking time, as the tins were quite small, but when they looked ready (after about 90 minutes) we took them out of the tins, and brushed them all over with egg, then cooked for another 15 minutes.
When they were nearly cool, the jelly was added - this was made by boiling pigs trotters in water flavoured with onion, carrot, bay leaves, sage and peppercorns.
We used a meat baster to add the jelly through the top of the pies - a lot of boiling was needed to make the jelly. and not much of it was used up.
The vegetables were all chopped up into quite small pieces, and then left for an hour with some salt sprinkled over. They were then rinsed and left to drain.
The sauce was vinegar and sugar which was boiled and then mixed with a paste of mustard powder, turmeric, cornflour and I also added a big pinch of chilli flakes.
The was poured over the veg and popped into kilner jars. This won't keep too well as the veg weren't cooked in the vinegar.
Everything was left in the fridge overnight, and we've just tried the pie for lunch.
The best pastry I've ever made, and the meat was lovely and tender - tastes quite different from a bought pork pie - but in a good way!
