Hot water pastry — hot water crust — is the strong, dense pastry of the traditional hand-raised meat pie: flour bound with fat and boiling water (or milk) melted together, worked while warm into a pliable dough that is moulded by hand around a filling, then baked into a freestanding, crisp-shelled pie. The boiling liquid partially gelatinises the flour’s starch, giving the pastry its remarkable structural strength — it stands without a tin — and its characteristic dense, slightly crumbly bite. It is the pastry of the Melton Mowbray pork pie, raised pies, and game pies: robust enough to contain jellied meat, rich enough to be delicious cold. Working it warm is essential — cold, it cracks.