Yvonne's Pork Pie

The last pork pie I ate was one that my grandmother made. That was many, many years ago. She was a pie maker. She made rice pies (plain and chocolate) and ham and cheese pies at Easter, and she made pork pies quite often cause my Pa loved them.

I thought all my Grams recipes were lost until my cousin Julie called me yesterday and said "Guess what? I have good news, I have your Grandmother's recipes" Yipee! I was elated. I thought they were gone forever, thrown away when Grams dementia set in. Seems they were just in Julie's basement all along.

So now your probably thinking that Yvonne is my Gram and this is one of the lost recipes, well sorry, it's not. Would have been a great intro though. My Gram's name is Millie. Yvonne is my cousin Julie's grandmother. Sorry for the confusion. Gram's pork pie was good, but Yvonne's is the ultimate. Don't worry, Gram won't find out, she doesn't even know what the Internet is.



Yvonne was the first pork pie maker in the family, she passed the skill down to my Aunt Claire, who taught my cousin Julie to make them.

It is a tradition in Julie's family that you eat pork pie for breakfast on Thanksgiving morning. Why you ask? Well I asked and Julie said "cause you're too busy making the meal". You just pop a pork pie in the oven and breakfast is served.

I also wanted to note that until now, this recipe wasn't written down. I transcribed it over the phone while Julie told me how to make it. I would hate to think that a delicious recipe like this would have been lost in time, cause I hope that someday I'll teach my kids (or daughter-in-laws) to make it and they'll pass it down to their kids. Maybe the tradition of eating pork pies on Thanksgiving morning will live on for years and years too. I'd like to hope so.



This is a pretty easy recipe to make. I doubled it and made 5 mini pies and one 8 inch pie. I always eat my pork pie with ketchup, the kids and John eat it with hot sauce.

Yvonne's Pork Pie
Printable recipe
To make one 8 or 9 inch pie, or 5 mini pies you'll need:

2 prepared pie crusts (you can make your own or
use those convenient babies in the red box)
1 1/2 pounds ground pork
1 medium onion, finely chopped
1 tablespoon olive oil
4 medium potatoes, peeled, quartered and boiled till tender
1 heaping teaspoon of Bell's Seasoning*
1/2 teaspoon ground sage
salt
pepper
milk for the crust



Peel and quarter the potatoes. Boil them in a large pot of salted water until tender.

While the potatoes are cooking, heat the olive oil in a large skillet. Add the chopped onion and cook for 3 - 5 minutes or until tender. Add in the ground pork, breaking it up as it cooks. When the pork is just about done, add in the Bell Seasoning, sage, salt and pepper. I used a heaping teaspoon of the Bells Seasoning cause I really like to taste it in the meat mixture. You might want to start off with a level teaspoon and add more to taste. Drain off any liquid that has accumulated in the pan.



Place the meat mixture in a large bowl. Add the half the potatoes and use a fork to break the potatoes into small pieces. You don't want them to be mashed, you still want little hunks so you can taste the potato in each bite. I only added in half the potatoes at first because you want the meat to potato ratio to be about 2 to one. More meat than potatoes. So I added in half and then just kept adding in more until it looked right.

Place the mixture into a prepared pie crust, top with another crust and crimp to seal. Cut in a few vent holes and brush the top with milk.

Bake at 350 for 30 - 35 minutes, or until crust is golden brown.

* Just in case there are those of you out there that don't know what Bells Seasoning is, I believe it's primarily a poultry/stuffing seasoning. You can buy it in the spice aisle of the grocery store. It comes in a little yellow box with a turkey on it. It'll be easy to spot right now since all the turkey fixin's are out.