Love mushroom vol-au-vents.

Got to be Colmans English Mustard with cold pork pies.

Talking about mustard flavour.
I had some fun handing out some Wasabi coated peas the other night.
Some people weren't amused.

Love them

I will get you a packet from Tesco for our first friendly game.
I will want to see you eat them mind.

Challenge accepted

As a mechanical engineering apprentice, I spent about three months in the heat treatment department.
One of the heat treatments done there was annealing, this is where you reduce the hardness and brittleness of steel to make it it machineable and it's done in a furnace that is exactly the right temperature for warming-up pork pies.
It's making me hungry just thinking of that first taste where the molten jelly starts to flow through the bitten crisp pastry ...

Vol au vents on the other hand were pretty dull fare and I only saw them in two places back in them days.
One was weddings, engagement parties etc, as described by Mr J Chicken above.
The other was a cafe in a yard off New St, Huddersfield, that had ideas of modernity, where you could order them covered in baked beans or with a baked potato.
They also sold open sandwiches which, to me, was oxymoronic, how can the filling be sandwiched with only one layer of bread?
And how could they justify charging more for a "sandwich" with less bread?

Whatever you ordered, it came with a "salad garni" ... i.e. an eighth of a tomato, a twisted slice of cucumber and a pinch of cress on a small lettuce leaf.
People fell into two groups, those who carefully avoided eating the garni as they regarded it a decoration and those who ate every bit of it right down to the last filament of the cress, because they'd paid for it and weren't going to waste it.
The garni lives on, although it tends to have a couple of tiny cubes of red pepper in it nowadays.

I remember two women customers in that cafe discussing how best to make vol au vents and one of them swore by Campbells Cream of Mushroom soup.
This was a canned soup that was concentrated and you prepared it (as a soup) by adding an equal amount of water to it and heating.
For a vol au vent filling, this lady spooned it straight from the can, undiluted.
Delicious, she said.

Fook the vol au vent anyway!
What's wrong a nice slice of egg and bacon quiche. (got to be of a solid consistency).

Suppose that was all en vogue back in the day?

My favourite is a pack of Aunt Bessie's Tidgy Puds filled with lamb & mint sauce. Just get some cheap lamb cut into cubes, brown off and then add water, reduce the heat and slowly stew until the lamb simply shreads, whack in a dollop of mint sauce and spoon into the puds.

I think my mother used to do that.

Have you made them yet? If so, were they good? I would like a good pork pie recipie.

I see what you did there!

As a kid I can remember queing up outside Stanforth Butchers "Celebrated Pork Pie Establishment" in Skipton with the smell of hot pie wafting past. It was almost as good as eating the pie afterwards.

The pies were fantastic on their own but I used put a hot one in a large bowl then cover in Baxters royal game soup. Sounds odd, but it was delicious.

A group of lads had a "who can eat most" competition. I think the record was six on the bounce, which is actually a lot harder than it sounds.

Dohhh!



Once you think about pies, it's difficult to get them out of your mind.

Not yet but I did have an experiment with the pie mould thing (Asda silicone "cup case" tray of six deep, steep sided moulds, £5) using puff pastry and a steak, onion and tomato concoction of my own, the pastry around the side was a bit soggy but it all got scoffed anyway.

I'm a bit sceptical about the pork pie recipe because it looks a bit too simple (doesn't seem to be enough seasoning) but will be giving it a go this weekend, just need some gelatine sheets - the recipe is here [urlhttp://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01kblc8/features/pork-pie[/url

anchovy essence, allspice & sage are the common denominator in these recipes, plus a choice of either mace or cinnamon & nutmeg: www.deliaonline.com/recipes/type ... -pies.html www.independent.co.uk/life-style ... 44635.html

anchovy essence, allspice & sage are the common denominator in these recipes, plus a choice of either mace or cinnamon & nutmeg: www.deliaonline.com/recipes/type ... -pies.html www.independent.co.uk/life-style ... 44635.html

I'm not sure silicone will get hot enough for good pastry or brad for that matter, I still prefer good old fashioned steal tins.

Thieving sod!

I was a bit wary to be honest but they were the only ones deep enough - the burn on my finger is evidence that silicone gets really hot though

Bloody predictive spelling...

Blame it on brad.

Christmas finger foods you say?

Feast your eyes on these that my sister makes from scratch...

Taking the 'finger' bit a touch on the literal side...

Penis in the hole, a favourite of mine.

During my classical chef training we made lots of vol au vents after making puff pastry from scratch.
I cant remember ever filling them though!
And I can concur that silican moulds don't cook your pastry as quickly as good old fashioned metal tins, because I tested it out like for like last night.

In your opinion will the silicone ones do the job for the pork pie pastry, even if it takes a little longer, because silicone is what I have and deep metal pie tins is what I don't have !