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Beef Steak Pie with Oysters
Three pounds of rump steak will make an excellent pie. Get beef that has been hung for some days, so that the beating process may not be required. Make a seasoning with half a dozen shallots, half an ounce of pepper and salt mixed together, a very little cayenne and pounded cloves, and a table-spoonful of flour as a thickening for the gravy; divide the meat into pieces of two and a half inches, put a layer in the dish with the seasoning equally distributed, and some large oysters, parboiled and bearded, in alternate layers, till all is used up. Reduce the liquor of the oysters, take equal quantities of it and good gravy to make half a pint, pour it into the pie and cover with the paste. Bake for two hours or more. Sufficient for seven or eight persons.
A Victorian raised-gravy beef pie, straightforward apart from two things the text leaves unstated: the oven and the fate of the oysters.
- The oysters are the hingeParboiling them and then baking two hours guarantees rubber. Use the parboiling only to release the liquor for the gravy, and slip the oysters in raw between the layers of beef, or add them through a slit in the crust in the last fifteen minutes.
- "Bearded"Trim off the dark frill of gill tissue around the edge of the shucked oyster. It is tough and does not soften with cooking.
- Half an ounce of pepper and saltThat is the weight of the two mixed together, roughly a tablespoon, and it should be mostly salt with a small proportion of black pepper. Half an ounce of pepper alone would be inedible for 3 lb of meat.
- OvenNone is given. Start at 425F for 15-20 minutes to set and colour the paste, then drop to 325-350F for the remaining time; 2 hours total is right for rump cut this size.
- Beef that has been hungDry-aged beef, which the recipe wants so the cook need not beat the steak with a mallet. Modern supermarket rump is generally sold ready to use without beating; cut it into 2½-inch pieces as directed.
- Half a pint of liquidAn imperial half-pint is 10 fl oz, about 1¼ US cups. Equal parts reduced oyster liquor and beef stock. Do not fill higher than the top layer of meat or it will boil up under the lid.
- "Paste"A short crust or rough puff for the lid only, this being a dish pie rather than a raised one. A pie funnel or an inverted cup in the centre supports the pastry and keeps it clear of the gravy.
- YieldSeven or eight as stated, which likely presumes the pie is one dish among several. Served alone with potatoes it will do five or six.
Beefsteak and oyster pie belongs to the long stretch of the nineteenth century when oysters were cheap protein rather than luxury: London and the Kent and Essex beds supplied them by the barrel, and cooks used them to stretch and season meat much as one might use mushrooms or bacon now. The pairing is often said to have declined not from changing taste but from the collapse of the English native oyster fishery late in the century, after which the oysters cost more than the steak.