Home › The Principles of Cookery › French Pie
French Pie
Line a dish with puff paste, and fill it with a mince of cold roast veal and grated ham; add two dozen oysters, bearded, which place, with a good seasoning of salt, mace, and lemon-peel, in alternate layers with the meat. Pour in a small cup of gravy, the liquor from the oysters, and a table-spoonful of mushroom ketchup, mixed together. Cover with paste, and remove from the oven when the paste is done. Time, about half an hour. Probable cost of oysters, 1s. 9d. to 2s. per dozen. Two pounds of mince is sufficient for five or six persons.
A Victorian raised-flavour pie built on leftovers: the veal and ham are already cooked, so the oven's only job is the pastry. Everything hinges on not overcooking the oysters.
- Oven temperatureThe recipe gives none. Puff paste is conventionally baked in a hot oven so it rises and sets before the filling boils. The half hour given is for the pastry, not the filling.
- Oysters go in raw and lastOysters go in raw -- two dozen shucked oysters, drained, layered between the meat as the recipe directs. Half an hour of oven heat is already at the outer limit for them; they will firm but should not shrink to rubber. Do not pre-poach them.
- BeardedBeards are the dark frilly gills along the edge of the oyster. Pull them off with your fingers or snip them; they are stringy but harmless if left.
- MaceMace is the outer covering of nutmeg, warmer and less sweet. Use it ground and sparingly, about a quarter teaspoon for two pounds of mince, or substitute a scant grating of nutmeg.
- Mushroom ketchupNot tomato ketchup. It is a thin, dark, salty mushroom-and-spice liquid, still sold in Britain; a mix of soy sauce and a little Worcestershire is the nearest general substitute.
- SaltThe ham, the oyster liquor and the mushroom ketchup are all salty. Season the mince lightly and taste the mixed liquid before pouring it in.
- Lining the dishA pastry-lined base under a wet filling is liable to go soggy; blind-baking the bottom crust, or building the pie as a top-crust-only dish, gives a better result. The recipe as printed expects a double crust.
- YieldTwo pounds of mince plus the oysters serves five or six, as the recipe states.
Pies of cold cooked meat lifted with oysters are often said to have been a common economy in nineteenth-century British kitchens, with oysters used as a seasoning rather than a luxury. The recipe here prices them at 1s 9d to 2s per dozen.