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Game Pie for Christmas
This pie is suitable where game is abundant and expense no object. Make a thick stiff crust, for directions for which see RAISED PIE. It may either be baked in a mould, or formed into shape with the hands. The latter operation is not easy for those unaccustomed to it. Line the bottom with slices of fat bacon; spread over that a layer of forcemeat, made by scalding the livers of the birds, and pounding them with their weight in fat bacon and lean ham, a few truffles, some bread-crumbs, salt, pepper, savoury herbs, parsley, and rasped lemon-rind. Then put in some of the joints of the birds-the breasts should be larded-and strew over all some finely-chopped mushrooms. Repeat until the pie is full. Season rather lightly, and keep putting little lumps of butter in amongst the other ingredients. Lay some slices of bacon on the top, put on the lid, ornament with pastry leaves and other devices, brush over with beaten egg, and bake in a moderate oven. If the pie is to be served hot, pour some strong gravy over it as soon as it is baked; if cold, take away the bacon from the top, and put some roughed aspic jelly over it before sending it to table. This pie may be made of pheasants, partridges, woodcocks, snipe, grouse, etc. Time to bake, three or four hours for a large pie. Probable cost, etc., uncertain, according to the size and contents.
A Victorian raised pie of the grand sort, built to be carried whole to a cold table. The instructions assume you already know hot-water crust and have a butcher's worth of game on the bench; the notes below fill in what the entry leaves unsaid.
- The hinge: the crust must be hot and stiffA raised pie stands on hot-water crust worked while still warm and pliable, then left to firm before filling. If it cools before you shape it, it cracks; if it is too soft, the walls slump under the weight of the meat. A hinged raised-pie mould or a deep springform tin removes most of the difficulty the entry mentions.
- Moderate ovenRead this as 325-350F. A large raised pie needs the full three to four hours to cook dense layers of meat through to the centre, so cover the top with foil once the crust has coloured, and take the middle of the filling to 165F on a probe.
- Joint the birds, or better, bone them"Some of the joints of the birds" means the pie is built from bone-in pieces, which makes carving awkward. Boned breasts and thigh meat, layered with the forcemeat, slice far more cleanly and cook more evenly.
- LardingThreading strips of pork back fat through lean breast meat with a larding needle. Game breast is very lean and dries out over three hours. Wrapping the breasts in thin bacon or barding fat achieves the same end with less equipment.
- The forcemeatScalding the livers means a brief blanch, not a full cooking, before pounding. Since the whole forcemeat is baked inside the pie for hours it comes out well done regardless; a food processor does in twenty seconds what a mortar did in twenty minutes. Truffles are optional in every practical sense here -- finely chopped brown mushrooms cooked dry until they give up their water give a comparable savoury depth, though not the flavour of truffle.
- Season lightly, and mean itFat bacon, lean ham and a bacon lining put a good deal of salt into the pie before you add any. The original's warning is worth following literally: season the forcemeat, taste a fried nugget of it, and leave the rest alone.
- Sourcing the birdsPheasant, partridge and quail are farmed and sold commercially in many places. Grouse is not farmed and reaches the market only as wild-shot birds. Woodcock and snipe are tightly regulated where they are hunted, and in the United States the sale of wild-harvested game birds is generally prohibited. Substitute farmed quail or pheasant.
- Aspic and the cold pieA cold raised pie needs jelly poured through a hole in the lid once the pie has cooled, to fill the gap left as the meat shrinks. "Roughed" aspic is set jelly chopped with a wet knife and spooned over as glittering rubble. Commercial aspic powder or a well-reduced, gelatine-fortified game stock both work.
- Yield and keepingA pie built in an 8-inch mould from two pheasants or four partridges will serve twelve to sixteen as part of a cold table. Cool it completely, refrigerate, and eat within four days; the Victorian larder it was designed for was colder and drier than a modern kitchen, but not colder than a fridge.
Raised game pies belong to the English country-house Christmas, when the shooting season and the holiday table coincided and a household might have more pheasant and partridge than it could roast. The form is old "- a standing crust strong enough to hold its own shape, originally as much a container for transport and keeping as a thing to be eaten "- and by the time Cassell's was compiled it had become a piece of display cookery, glazed, ornamented with pastry leaves and sent whole to a cold sideboard. The opening line is unusually candid about who the recipe is for: "where game is abundant and expense no object." Melton Mowbray and the pork pies of Leicestershire are the surviving commercial descendants of the same technique. Note too what the entry does with cost "- most entries in this dictionary give a probable price, and here it prints "Probable cost, etc., uncertain, according to the size and contents."