Venue: Walter Smith Butcher’s Shop, 64 High Street, Albrighton. WV7 3JA
Date: 15th January 2018
Pie: Pork
Pie Temperature: Cold
Rating: 9.0
A good friend brought a pie into the office for me to have for lunch a few weeks back sourced from a local Butchers. Walter Smith Butchers are known very well across the Midlands and further afield too for having the best locally sourced meats and home made products produced to their own recipes. They have been in business since 1885 and have been making Pork Pies to their own secret recipe for a very long time. Their pies in particular are quite famous in the locale and the shops proudly display that they are members of the Q Guild.
With a strap line of Quality People, Quality Service, Quality Meat, you would naturally assume there is going to be a “Quality” Pork Pie, and you wouldn’t be wrong. The pie itself was quite dark in colour, the pastry was firm and cut very well as the pie was filled to the max with a delicious deep coloured pork filling. There was a little jelly at the corners that helped make the whole pie a succulent mouthful when I bit into it. The filling was quite compact, a solid construction, and as I said quite dark in colour. It was well spiced with just a hint of pepper and salt which meant that the flavour of the meat came bursting through on the taste buds. It was quite a large pie too and was shared with a colleague, who enjoyed the eating just as much as I.
I did take the opportunity to try a small slice with a little English Mustard which my friend had recommended and also brought into the office (see what I mean about being a good friend) and I have to say they really did go well together, the meat flavour was not over powered by the mustard, which can happen when a pork filling has a more delicate flavour, but in this case there was definitely a complementary relationship, a real “Love & Marriage goes together like a Horse & Carriage” affair.
I’ll be looking out for a Walter Smith shop next time I’m on my travels in the Midlands to see what else is on offer. By the way, and before you ask…. that’s not me in the picture below, I’m not quite that slim and wasn’t around in 1885 although sometime I feel old enough to have been.
HF.
