The Paying Guests and Pork and Apple Pie

I have been gone a long, long time.  Sorry for that.  Is it a particularly inspiring book that has brought me back?  Not really.  A fantastic recipe I have been dying to make for a while?  Nope.    I am not sure what it is, but the spark of inspiration to come back to bookcooker started earlier this week with the possibility of a massive snow storm.  What would I do stuck inside?  I would surely have work to do, but that's no fun.  My closets are starting to resemble a hoarders, I could tackle those - no thank you!  Curling up with my laptop and a slightly complicated recipe sounded like just the thing.  So the idea was hatched, I just finished Sarah Waters "The Paying Guests" which is a novel that, while I liked OK, managed to be both overly dramatic and a little boring.  The books takes place in the outskirts of London after World War I and follows a protagonist, Frances, that used to be well off and upper class and is now poor and upper class, which forces her to maintain her family's big fancy house herself.  As part of her daily tasks she must make the sturdy British meals that are also featured on Downtown Abbey - pigeons, pies and stews.  There is one pie in particular (or rather an unfinished one) that takes place at a particularly momentous moment in the book, and this inspired me to google british pies.  The first recipe to pop up was this Pork and Apple Pie from, in my humble opinion, a treasure of British reality TV  - Paul Hollywood. For those of you that don't know him, he is one of the judges on the best cooking competition show ever in human existence - The Great British Baking Show.  This show is great because there is no soap opera drama, the contestants are real every day Britons, but they are also in possession of incredibly impressive baking skills.  It is also fun because they make strange British desserts.  Anyway, highly recommend you check it out.  When I saw the Paul Hollywood recipe I was sold and determined to make a bookcooker comeback.  Of course in Boston the snow storm did not come (sorry DC and NY, good luck!), but my inspiration held out.  

Sarah Waters' The Paying Guests is the story of a young woman stuck in a drab existence by the constrictions of her time, her gender and her sexuality.  Frances is a young woman in her 20's whose life was scarred by World War I.  In this war she lost her brothers and her father died from heartbreak at that devestating lost.  Although Frances and her family leave in a large, stately house in the ritzy Champion Hill neighborhood on the outskirts of London, her father's death reveleaed that he had mismanageed their money and they were living above their actual means.  Frances and her mother decide that in order to maintain the house they must fire all of the servants and take in lodgers - both actions cause their society friends to tut behind their back.  Without the servants Frances is left to take care of all of the tasks they usually wood - rigourous daily cleaning, constant maintenance fires to keep the house warm and preparing all teas and meals.  Now for you and me, having to just simply take care of ourselves and our homes doesn't seem like such a big deal - which is why from the start it is hard to truly get behind Frances at the beginning of the book.  Of course I recognize that living today - keeping clothed, fed and warm - is as easy today as the click of a mouse or the flip of a switch or the swipe of a credit card.  Back then, after WWI, it was difficult, and unheard of for someone of Frances' class.  Frances seems dour and to almost enjoy the drudgery of her daily existence, still harboring intense anger at her father.  What seems to bring a little excitement into her life are the lodgers - Lillian and Len Barber.  They are from a coarser class from Frances, are a little flashy, a little naughty and they send Frances and her mother into almost a state of shock.  The drama comes on after their arrival - Frances falls for Lillian - and reader doesn't quite get it.  Frances is bookish, plain and political.  Lillian seems superficial and slightly ditzy.  But they fall into a heated, melodramatic affair with lots of hushed, desperate meetings in corners and love notes slipped under closed doorways. The relationship causes them both to be a little out of control, leading to the drama of the last third of the book, which I won't ruin for you.  I did not love this book - I found Frances blah and the love affair with Lillian unbelievable - I wasn't routing for them.  Like I said above, the book at some times is melodramatic and at others times, when it is recounting Frances daily tasks to keep the house up, threatened to put me to sleep.  I will not give up on Sarah Waters just yet, as I really enjoyed her previous work (The Little Stranger, The Night Watch).


Pork,  Apple  and Cider Pie, adapted from here
(printable recipe)
This sturdy pork pie is exactly the kind of dish Frances had to teach herself to make to feed herself and her mother, after years of being fed by servants.  One one pivotal point in the book, Frances tries to throw of her mother's suspicion of her strange behavior (staying around the house to liaise with Lillian rather than accompany her mother to social engagements) by focusing on making herself a "pie" for dinner.  The pie is eventually abandoned when the book takes a dramatic turn.  This pork pie seems like a real British dish - pork, apples and hard cider are stewed together under a quick crust also made with cider.  The pork shoulder called for in the recipe makes for a really tender, tasty stew.  The hard cider gives the dish  - both the stew and the crust a nice tang and lightness.  A perfect dish for a cozy winter evening.

Ingredients
1-2 tablespoons canola or vegetable oil
1 medium onion, chopped
2 celery ribs, chopped
1 lb, 2 oz boneless pork shoulder cut into pieces
2 tablespoons all purpose flour
6 fl oz dry cider
6 fl oz chiken stock
3 apples, peeled, cored and sliced
6 large sage leaves, chopped
salt and pepper
Crust
1 egg, beaten
4 fl oz dry cider
4 fl oz olive oil
1 teaspoon baking powder
pinch of salt
12-14 oz all purpose flour
1 egg for glaze

Directions:

1. To make the stew, heat oil over medium heat in a large saute pan.  Add the onion and celery and cook until translucent, about 10 minutes.  Do not let vegetables brown.  Remove vegetables from pan.
2. Add half of the pork to the pan and brown on all sides.  When browned, remove half of pork to dish.  Cook second half of pork until browned on all sides.
3. When pork is browned, add it back to pan along with onion and celery. 
4. Sprinkle flour on top and stir and cook for about 1 minute.
5. Add the cider and stock and stir to make sure flour is incorporated.  Add the apples and sage and bring to a boil. 
6. Reduce heat to simmer and cook, stirring occasionally for 45 minutes, until the pork is tender.  Add more chicken stock if the mixture looks dry.
7. Add salt and pepper.
8. Remove the stew until the vessels you want to serve it in - either a larger casserole dish or individual/smaller dishes.  Let cool.
9. For crust, in a large bowl stir together the egg, cider, oil, baking powder and salt.
10. Stir in the flour  - you may not need all of it - under a soft dough forms.  I used about 12 oz of the flour.  This all came together easily with a wooden spoon and my hands.
11. Form the dough into a ball, flatten and wrap in plastic.
12. Refrigerate and let rest for at least 30 minutes.
13. Preheat the oven to 400.
14. Roll out the dough when it is rested and cover the dish with the pork stew.  Make whatever design you like - be sure to cut vents into the dough.
15. Brush with the egg wash.
16. Place the stew dish onto a large baking sheet to catch any leakage.
17. Bake for 35 - 40 minutes until the crust is golden brown.  
18. Let sit 10 -15 minutes before serving.

The Paying Guests, by Sarah Waters