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Beef Pie, Raised
Cover the sides of a raised pie-mould with butter, and put a lining of paste, made in the following manner, neatly into it. Chop a quarter of a pound of suet, put it into a stewpan with a quarter of a pound of butter and a pint of water; when boiling, pass this through a sieve into two pounds of flour, and stir it with a spoon until the heat has gone off. When the dough, or paste, is quite smooth, roll it out, and it is ready for the lining. Take two pounds of rump steak and cut them into small collops; season them with minced parsley, pepper, and salt; dust them with flour, and lay them round the mould; fill it with alternate layers of potatoes, thinly sliced, and meat. Make a lid for the mould with some of the paste, brush it over with beaten egg, and bake about three hours and a half. Put an ornamental center to the cover, that it may be more easily raised to throw in some gravy as soon as it is baked. Probable cost, 3s. 10d.
A hot-water-crust raised pie of the kind British kitchens built in hinged tin moulds. The original assumes you know your oven, so the numbers below fill in what Cassell's leaves out.
- The hinge of the recipeHot-water crust is pliable only while warm; the original has you stir the paste only until the fierce heat has gone off, then roll at once. Left to cool properly it stiffens and cracks, and will not take the shape of the mould.
- CollopsAn old word for small thin slices of meat, not cubes. Rump steak sliced about a quarter-inch thick will cook through in the long bake and stay in identifiable layers.
- The mouldA raised pie mould is a hinged or springform tin with straight sides, released by unclipping. A 7-inch deep springform or a loose-bottomed deep cake tin substitutes; a loaf tin works but gives square corners where the paste is thinnest.
- OvenNo temperature is given. A pie of this size wants a hot start of about 425F for 20 minutes to set the crust, then around 325F for the remainder. Three and a half hours is not excessive for two pounds of beef and raw potato in a sealed case, but cover the top with foil once it has browned.
- Paste proportionsTwo pounds of flour to a pint of water, quarter-pound suet and quarter-pound butter is a stiff, sturdy crust built to stand up rather than to be eaten with pleasure. Halve it if you are working in a 7-inch tin; the full quantity suits a large mould.
- Passing through a sieveThe sieve will hold back any suet that has not fully melted, so that what meets the flour is hot liquid fat and water; the original gives no reason for the step.
- The gravy holeThe ornamental centre is a removable piece in the lid, put there so it can be lifted and gravy poured in as soon as the pie comes out of the oven, as the recipe directs.
- ServingThe quantities suggest 8 to 10 portions.
- Probable costCassell's gave a probable cost for its recipes, reflecting a book written for households keeping accounts.
Hot-water crust is one of the oldest surviving English pastry techniques, descended from the medieval "coffyn" hat served served as a baking vessel and storage container as much as food, and was often not eaten at all. By the time Cassell's New Dictionary of Cookery appeared in the later nineteenth century the paste had taken on suet and butter, but its structural job remained: to stand free of a dish and to hold its shape when the hinged mould was unclipped. The addition of sliced potato between the layers stretches two pounds of rump across a large pie, and the removable ornamental centre is a piece of practical engineering dressed up as decoration.