Wiltshire born, Wiltshire bread, strong in the arm and thick in the head!
Why are people from Wiltshire so strong? Hard work and good eatin’.
The Wiltshire Plait is a great example of good, local tasty food. It is basically a local variation on the sausage plait, which is a variation of the hugely popular and delicious sausage roll.
Wrapping ground meat in pastry seems to date back to both Roman and Greek times. It would appear that the modern version was conceived in the early 19th century in France (of all places!!). Using ground pork as the filling became popular in London during the Napoleonic Wars and has ever since been viewed as an English dish.
What makes Wendy’s and Charlie’s Wiltshire Plait our Wilshire Plait? Apart from oodles of love, they really wanted to create something that encompassed freshness and a great taste.
Starting with the pastry, Charlie makes his by folding in buckets of lovely local butter to make a rich, creamy puff pastry that is worth eating just on its own. The filling is made up of bacon, pork belly and shoulder all finely chopped (not ground!) and blended with a combination of herbs and spices. Now comes the Wiltshire differentiator. They use local apples and cheddar, mix it all up and wrap in the pastry.
The pastry wrapping is when Wendy turns artistic. She doesn’t simply score the pastry but literally plaits it like she used plait our daughter, Laura’s hair.
The outcome, my favourite dish they make, traditional Wiltshire Plait, with a Virginia ingredient twist.
