Lancashire Pork Pie Appreciation Society

A late change of supplier meant that the first pie tasted on Monday 4^th September was that of Heys Family Butchers of Burnley.  Hey’s very kindly donated the pies to us as part of our money raising efforts for Macmillan Cancer Support. Once again all present were very appreciative of this gesture – more so when they realised the quality of the pies!

The standard dozen pies were provided for the LPPAS tasters. The pies came in their foil pastry cases and proved to be excellent in every category. With three more months to go in our search for the best pork pies in Lancashire, the pies missed top spot by the narrowest of margins. The overall mark of 82% shows these are outstanding pies and they will almost certainly be in our finals night to decide the overall champion. In doing so they are comfortably awarded the much coveted ‘LPPAS Highly Recommended’ status.  Here are the scores of the tasters from the night.

 Let’s consider the characteristics that make this such a highly rated pie. Firstly the overall quality with the excellent score of 82:  The comments provide high praise indeed. ‘Mmmmm!!’ perhaps provides the simplest summary. Other, more discursive comments included ‘excellent combination’; ‘very good pie – best yet!’; ‘very well balanced’ and ‘a perfect combination’.

The marks for the pastry were 82 which puts the pie at the top of that category. Most appreciated the pastry was crisp. ‘Perfect’ commented one judge. It seemed that there was unanimous agreement, with no single negative comment form the 15 tasters. ‘Delicious’; ‘crisp, tasty, just the right thickness’ and ‘beautiful colour’ are the combination of factors that take this pie to the top of the tree for the pastry lovers.

Next to the pork. Here again the scores were superb. The score of 83 in this category sees the pie move to joint top of this category. The comments here were almost, but not quite, unanimous. ‘Great texture and flavour’; ‘great taste and seasoning’; and ‘well packed’ summarises the overwhelming positive comments. Two tasters would have preferred a little more pepper. This just goes to show that pies are always a matter of personal taste. What is perfectly seasoned to some can seem bland to others. The fact that the Heys’ pie achieved top score in this category shows that the butcher here must be getting the balance just right.

Finally on to the jelly. One of the features of the pies was how well filled with meat they were. Nevertheless, what room there was between the meat and the pastry was expertly filled with jelly. As always, it seems jelly is the most disputed category. Here a score of 76 was obtained taking the pie up to 4^th place in this category. ‘Flavoursome jelly – good proportion in relation to meat’ was a comment echoed by many tasters. The slightly lower score here (although still high) is  probably due to the fact the pies were crammed so full of pork. Although the big majority of tasters remarked that the jelly was ‘plentiful’ others would have still preferred more, with two of our tasters claiming that there was ‘not enough’ jelly.

Overall, the Heys Family Butcher’s pie is, at the time of writing, one point below top in our overall ranking, top for pastry and joint top for pork.  So, if you want to taste a top class pie, we strongly recommend you make the journey to Burnley to sample them for yourselves. If you are a football fan, the shop is a stones throw from Turf Moor, so why not pop in when you’re at the match?

Heys Family Butchers
70a Lyndhurst Road
Burnley, Lancashire
BB10 4DE
United Kingdom

Or use our Pie Finder for directions!

While our mission is to find and promote the best pork pies in Lancashire, there’s no point in turning down a good pie from elsewhere. Recently LPPAS have been privileged to sample pies from two outstanding bakers – Mr C’s of Fife and Powell’s of Whitchurch (Shropshire). The pies are different in style from our normal Lancashire pies, which is how it should be. So whilst we would always champion the Lancashire style, what did we make of these pies? In short, both Mr C’s and Powell’s make excellent pies and their enthusiasm and commitment to quality shines through. We’ll look at each in turn:

Mr C’s Pies

Mr C’s supply a wide range of high quality establishments and it was easy to see why. A wide range of pies were sampled: Pork, Pork & Chorizo, Pork & Black Pudding (Piggy Black), Venison, Chicken & Ham, Salmon & Smoked Seafood. As a general comment the quality of the ingredients was very clear. The jelly in particular was amongst the best we’ve tasted. The pastry was thicker than Lancashire style but expertly cooked and very tasty. The pork was Melton Mowbray style and perfectly seasoned. My preference is for plain pork pies but the pork and chorizo and chicken and ham provide good variety for those looking for a bit extra. The venison and smoked salmon & seafood were outstanding pies. The venison had a rich taste and flavour and met expectations. The salmon & smoked seafood exceeded expectations. It was hard to know what to expect from this pie, having never tasted anything like it, but it was a delightful blend of ingredients and of all the pies tasted must take the highest level of skill to balance ingredients to such an effect. Finally the personal favourite on the night was the piggy black pie. This is pork surrounded by black pudding and the overall effect was exquisite. Citizens of Bury, look away now, but the Scottish Black Pudding was as good as anything I’ve tasted and complemented the pork perfectly – a real treat.

Powell’s Pies

In contrast to Mr C’s, Powell Pies do just one thing, but they do it very well. They make pork pies to their traditional family recipe using the best locally sourced ingredients. Again their style is more Melton Mowbray than Lancashire, but nevertheless these are great pork pies. The pastry was again thicker than it would be in Lancs, but nevertheless managed to retain an excellent crispness. The pork had an excellent texture and perfect seasoning and finally the jelly was rich and peppery even if there was room for a little more. All in all excellent pies and it’s great to see local and family traditions upheld in this way.

More details:

Mr C’s Pies: http://www.mrcspies.co.uk

Powell’s Pies: https://www.facebook.com/PowellsPorkPies/

Monday 7th August saw two LPPAS records broken. With a total of 34 pies and 20 tasters this was the highest number of pies and the highest number of participants. Three good pies were served up all of which achieved LPPAS Recommended status. The winner on the night was Howarth’s of Urmston which just missed out by one mark on Highly Recommended status with an excellent overall score of 74 and moved into fourth place in the jelly category and ninth place overall.

While all the pies were judged positively there was a feeling that no one pie had a perfect balance of pastry, meat and jelly and that if the best of all three were to be combined a top rated pie could have been produced.

A full report will follow but for the moment the ratings for the three pies are shown below:

Monday 3rd July proved to be the best night so far in terms of the quality of the two pies tasted. The second pie to be reviewed by the hungry LPPAS members were the pies from Higginson’s of Grange. Although now in Cumbria, Grange is very firmly in the County Palatine of Lancashire. Higginson’s had very kindly donated the pies to us as part of our money raising efforts for Macmillan Cancer Support. All were very appreciative of this gesture – more so when they realised the quality of the pies!

The standard dozen pies were provided for the LPPAS tasters. Despite this being the second pie of the night the hunger of the tasters remained undiminished.  The overall mark of 83% shows these are outstanding pies and puts them, at the time of writing, joint top of our very competitive leader board. In doing so they are comfortably awarded the much coveted ‘LPPAS Highly Recommended’ status.  Here are the scores of the tasters from the night.

Let’s look at the characteristics which make this our joint top rated pie. Firstly the overall quality with the excellent score of 83: Here there were a wide range of plaudits. ‘Wow!!’ perhaps summarises it best, with other comments being ‘spot on’, ‘excellent all round’ and ‘beautiful balance between pastry, pork and jelly’.  The marks for the pastry were a high 80 but slightly lower than the marks for overall quality and pork, Most appreciated the at the pastry was ‘crisp and tasty’ but the one small gripe from some was that it was thick in places. No doubt this is in part due to the substantial size and depth of the pie. The pork achieved the top mark of 83. – ‘Well what can I say!’ was one remark with another member saying that the meat had ‘a lovely texture, good colour and impressively smokey’. This time the jelly seemed to be to everyone’s liking. The size of the pie meant there was room for jelly but no scrimping on the meat. The two complemented each other perfectly. The ‘just slightly runny’ consistency of the jelly was well received and in conjuction with the jelly’s clarity and well seasoned flavour it proved a winning combination.

Overall, the Higginson’s Pie is, at the time of writing, joint top in our overall and pork pie rankings and second for both pastry and jelly.  So if you want to taste a top class pie  we strongly recommend you make the journey to sample them for yourselves.

Higginson’s Butchers
Keswick House
Main Street
Grange Over Sands
Cumbria
LA11 6AB

Or use our Pie Finder for directions!

Monday 3rd July proved to be the best night so far in terms of the quality of the two pies tasted. First to be reviews by the hungry LPPAS members were the pies from Wildblood’s of Norden. The pies had been baked specially for us on Monday morning (a day when Wildblood’s are normally closed) and once tasting began everyone was very grateful indeed.

As usual a dozen standard pies were provided for the hungry crowd and at the end of the tasting only Pepsi, the LPPAS dog, was disappointed as there was very little to spare.  The overall mark of 79% is testament to the quality of the pie, comfortably achieving the much coveted ‘LPPAS Highly Recommended’ status, and putting the pie joint 3rd on what is an increasingly tight pork pie leader board. Here are the scores of the tasters from the night.

Let’s look at the characteristics which make this such a highly rated pie. Firstly the overall quality with the excellent score of 79: Here there was general agreement that this was a ‘solid’ pie. ‘Sturdy’ and ‘packed full of meat’ were two of the terms used. The marks for the pastry and the pork were similar at 79 and 80. ‘Just up my street’ was a comment from one of the tasters on the pastry, while another remarked that the pastry was ‘crisp, thin & tasty with an excellent sheen. The pork too was much respected. Delicious and well-seasoned were two comments alongside the remark that he pork was ‘not too spicy’ and there was ‘lots of it!’ Finally the jelly, which once again illustrates how individual preferences can vary. The pie was so full of meat that in some pies there was little room for the jelly. Where there was jelly it was rated very highly with marks as high as 85 and 90%. It can hardly be a criticism that the pie was too full of meat but a little more room for jelly might have seen the pies score higher still amongst our jelly loving tasters.

Overall, the Wildblood’s Pie is, at the time of writing, joint third in our overall pie rankings and in the top three for both pastry and pork.  If you haven’t already sample Wilblood’s pies, as a LPPAS Highly Recommended Pie, we strongly recommend you make the journey to sample them for yourselves.

Wildbloods of Norden
836 Edenfield Road
Norden
Rochdale
OL12 7SL

Or use our Pie Finder for directions!