Pork Pie Of The Month - July 2019 - Chris' Quality Butchers, Worksop

Welcome to the second edition of Pork Pie Of The Month! This time we’re rating a pie bought from Chris’ Quality Butchers in Worksop but made by Potter’s of Barnsley. I have to admit that I was a little disappointed when told that Chris’ didn’t make their own pies in-house, but that certainly wouldn’t affect our judgement of the product. If you want to check out Potters’ website click here - POTTERS

I was joined for this tasting by Tony Clarke, a pork pie lover from beautiful downtown Mansfield. Tony has some decent credentials for the job – his uncle worked at Pork Farms in the seventies and would bring the family a huge gala pie every Christmas. There were no leftovers...

But on to the job in hand, and Potters pie.  First appearance showed an obviously machine-crimped lid (compare it to the top of last month’s pie), which set some alarm bells ringing. The colour was also very much what you might find in a supermarket pie - bland. We cut into it and the pastry was mid-range, firm enough to keep things where they should be but also soft enough to allow easy slicing. This didn’t please Tony much as he prefers his pastry “very hard”. Each to their own....but he’s wrong, obviously!

The filling was very finely chopped and we prefer something much chunkier. “Needs more salt” said Tony, but he did prefer the filling to the case. The flavour was average at best, again very reminiscent of a supermarket pie. There was not a lot of jelly and this pie needs a lot more of the wobbly stuff to lift it out of its mid-table mediocrity.

This pie cost £2.39 – less expensive than last month’s but also much less quality.

Appearance & Aroma 2

Filling 2

Pastry 2.5

Jelly 1.5

Total 8      

The year so far:

14.0 – Manor Farm Shop, Leasingham (made by Southern & Thorpe, Ruskington)

8.0 -  Chris’ Quality Butchers, Worksop (made by Potters of Barnsley)

If you know of an excellent pork pie please tip us the wink!