BEEF-STEAK PIE.
From a couple to three pounds of rump-steak will be sufficient for a good family pie. It should be well kept though perfectly sweet, for in no form can tainted meat be more offensive than when it is enclosed in paste. Trim off the coarse skin, and part of the fat should there be much of it (many eaters dislike it altogether in pies, and when this is the case every morsel should be carefully cut away). If the beef should not appear very tender, it may be gently beaten with a paste-roller until the fibre is broken, then divided into slices half as large as the hand, and laid into a dish bordered with paste. It should be seasoned with salt and pepper, or cayenne, and sufficient water poured in to make the gravy, and keep the meat moist. Lay on the cover, and be careful always to brush the edge in every part with egg or cold water, then join it securely to the paste which is round the rim, trim both off close to the dish, pass the point of the knife through the middle of the cover, lay some slight roll or ornament of paste round it, and decorate the border of the pie in any of the usual modes, which are too common to require description. Send the pie to a well-heated, but not fierce oven for about an hour and twenty minutes. To make a richer beef-steak pie put bearded oysters in alternate layers with the meat, add their strained liquor to a little good gravy in which the beards may be simmered for a few minutes to give it further flavour, and make a light puff paste for the crust. Some caters like it seasoned with a small portion of minced onion or eschalot when the oysters are omitted. Mushrooms improve all meat-pies. Veal pies may be made by this receipt, or by the second of those which follow. Slices of lean ham, or parboiled ox-tongue, may be added to them.
1 to 1-1/2 hour.
COMMON MUTTON PIE.
A pound and a quarter of flour will make sufficient paste for a moderate-sized pie, and two pounds of mutton freed from the greater portion of the fat will fill it. Butter a dish and line it with about half the paste rolled thin; lay in the mutton evenly, and sprinkle over it three-quarters of an ounce of salt, and from half to a whole teaspoonful of pepper according to the taste; pour in cold water to within an inch of the brim. Roll the cover, which should be quite half an inch thick, to the size of the dish; wet the edges of the paste with cold water or white of egg, be careful to close them securely, cut them off close to the rim of the dish, stick the point of the knife through the centre, and bake the pie an hour and a quarter in a well-heated oven.
Flour, 1-1/4 lb.; minced suet rather less than 1/2 lb.; or, butter, 4 oz., and very pure lard, 2 or 3 oz.; mutton, 2 lbs.; salt, 3/4 oz.; pepper, half to a whole teaspoonful; water, 1/4 pint: 1-1/4 hour.
A GOOD MUTTON PIE.
Lay a half-paste of short or of puff crust round a buttered dish, take the whole or part of a loin of mutton, strip off the fat entirely, and raise the flesh clear from the bones without dividing it, then slice it into cutlets of equal thickness, season them well with salt and pepper, or cayenne, and strew between the layers some finely-minced herbs mixed with two or three eschalots, when the flavour of these last is liked; or omit them, and roll quite thin some good forcemeat (which can be flavoured with a little minced eschalot at pleasure), and lay it between the cutlets: two or three mutton kidneys intermingled with the meat will greatly enrich the gravy; pour in a little cold water, roll the cover half an inch thick, or more should the crust be short, as it will not rise like puff paste, close the pie very securely, trim the edges even with the dish, ornament the pie according to the taste, make a hole in the centre, and bake it from an hour and a half to a couple of hours. The proportions of paste and meat may be ascertained by consulting the last receipt. Gravy made with part of the bones, quite cleared from fat, and left to become cold, may be used to fill the pie instead of water.
RAISED PIES.
