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Giblet Pie
Take one set of goose or fowl giblets. If not already cleaned, wash them in warm water several times. Take the gall from the liver, and cut it and the heart into two pieces. Pick the head well, soak it in hot water, and chop off the beak. Skin the feet and the gizzard, and cut the feet with the pinions into two pieces, the neck and gizzard into four each. Put all into a saucepan with cold water, let the contents just boil, then take them out, drain them, throw away the water, and put them, with fresh water, again into the pan. Add a tea-spoonful of salt, half a tea-spoonful of whole pepper, a sprig of parsley, a sprig of thyme, and two onions. Simmer gently until done enough. Pour the giblets into a bowl, and let them get cold. Unless this is done the flavour of the giblets will spoil the pie-crust. Lay one pound of steak, cut into pieces about an inch and a half square, at the bottom of the pie-dish. If beef-steak is used, it must be stewed in a separate saucepan until nearly tender before being put into the pie. With rump-steak this is not necessary. Put the cold giblets among the pieces of steak. Strain as much of the liquid as will nearly cover the meat in the pie, line the edge with a good light crust, place a cover over the whole, brush it with yolk of egg, and ornament it with pastry leaves. Bake in a good oven. Thicken the gravy in which the giblets were stewed with a little flour and butter, or flour mixed with water; brown it, and add to it a glass of port wine, and pour into the pie, through an incision, just before serving. A giblet pie should never be eaten cold. Time, from one to two hours to stew the giblets--if the goose or fowl is young, one hour will be sufficient; when the gizzard is tender the giblets are done enough; an hour and a half to stew beef-steak; one hour to bake the pie. Probable cost, 2s. 2d. Sufficient for six persons.
A raised-gravy meat pie built on the parts of a bird most kitchens now discard. The method is sound, but the shopping list is the hard part.
- What a "set of giblets" wasHead, neck, feet, pinions (wing tips), heart, liver and gizzard, from a bird plucked and trussed at home. A supermarket giblet bag holds neck, heart, gizzard and liver only; for feet, head and pinions you need a butcher, a poultry farm or an Asian market. A modern giblet pack will give you considerably less than one Victorian goose set.
- The gall bladderThe small green-tinged sac attached to the liver. Cut it away with a margin of liver still around it and do not pierce it — spilled bile is intensely bitter and will taint everything it touches. Many modern packs have it removed already.
- The blanchBringing the giblets to a boil in cold water and then discarding that water is not fussiness. It draws out blood and scum from the neck bones and feet, and gives a clear, clean-tasting broth rather than a muddy one.
- Cool the giblets first — this is the hingeCool the giblets first -- The recipe insists on it, and gives its own reason: if the giblets go in warm, "the flavour of the giblets will spoil the pie-crust." Warm filling and warm stock will also soften a butter crust before it reaches the oven. Chill the giblets and the strained stock thoroughly.
- Which steakThe recipe lets rump go in raw and directs that any other "beef-steak" be stewed in a separate pan until nearly tender first. Tougher stewing cuts will be tough under a perfectly browned lid if that step is skipped.
- "A good oven"Around 400-425F (200-220C) for the first 20 minutes to set and colour the pastry, then down to about 350F (180C) for the rest of the hour. A steady 375F throughout also works if you are not minded to fuss.
- The stock and the incisionStrain the liquid to nearly cover the meat only — a full dish boils over and lifts the lid. The thickened, browned gravy with port goes in hot through a slit at the last moment, so a pie funnel or a well-cut vent in the centre is worth having.
- Whole pepperHalf a teaspoon of whole peppercorns in the stewing water, not ground pepper. They are strained out with the aromatics; ground pepper at that stage would cloud the stock.
- Yield and servingSix, as stated, with the giblets bulked out by a pound of steak. The recipe insists a giblet pie "should never be eaten cold", though it does not say why.
Giblet pie belongs to the economy of a household that bought or raised whole birds and expected every part to earn its keep. A goose sent to the table for a feast left behind a set of giblets substantial enough to be a second dinner, and the pie — padded with steak, bound with a rich brown gravy and lifted with port — is that second dinner dressed up rather than apologised for. Giblet pie, often with beefsteak under the pastry, appears in English cookery books through the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The recipe puts the cost at 2s. 2d. for six.