The best kind of meat for mince pies, is neats tongue and feet, and chickens; a shank of beef makes very good pies. Boil your meat till perfectly tender, then take it up, clear it from the bones and gristle, chop it very fine and mix it with double the quantity of chopped apple; if the meat is not fat, put in a little suet or melted butter, moisten it with cider, add cloves, mace, or nutmeg, and cinnamon, to your taste, sweeten it with molasses and sugar, add a little salt. If you wish to have your pies very rich, put in wine or brandy to your taste, the juice and peel of a lemon, the peel should be grated, and stoned raisins and citron cut in small strips. Bake the pies in shallow plates. Make apertures in the upper crust, before you cover the pies. Bake the pies from half, to three quarters of an hour. Mince meat for pies, with brandy or wine in it, and strongly spiced will keep several months, in cold weather. It should be put in a stone pot, and kept in a dry cool place.
[191.] Peach Pie.
Take mellow juicy peaches, wash and put them in a deep pie plate, or pudding dish, lined with pie crust, sprinkle sugar on each layer of peaches, a great deal will be necessary to sweeten them sufficiently, put in about a table spoonful of water, sprinkle a little flour over the top and cover the pie with a thick crust. Bake it an hour. Pies made in this manner are much better than with the stones taken out, as the prussic acid of the stones, gives the pie a fine flavor. Dried peaches should be stewed and sweetened, before being made into pies; they do not require any spice.
[192.] Tart Pie.
Sour apples, cranberries, and dried peaches, all make nice tarts. Stew and strain them; if the peaches are not tart, put in the juice and grated peel of a lemon, put in a little sugar. Line shallow pie plates with a thin crust, put a rim of pie crust round the edge of the dish, fill the plates with your tart. Roll some of the crust very thin, cut it into narrow strips, with a jagging iron, and lay it on the pie in a fanciful manner. Bake the pies about twenty five minutes.
[193.] Rice Pie.
To a quart of boiling water, put a small tea cup of rice, and boil it till very soft. Then add a quart of milk, strain it through a sieve, put in a little salt, five beaten eggs, a nutmeg grated, and sugar enough to sweeten it, the sugar should be put in before the rice is strained, add a few raisins. Bake it in deep pie plates, without an upper crust.
[194.] Rhubarb or Persian Apple Pie.
Take the stalks of the rhubarb plant in the spring, or fore part of summer, (they are not good later,) cut them in small pieces, and stew them till tender; then strain and sweeten them to your taste, bake them with only an under crust.