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Lamb Pie
A lamb pie may be made either of the neck, breast, or loin of lamb, and of these the breast will be found to be much the best. Take about two pounds of meat with the bones, cut it up into neat pieces, and sprinkle over these a dessert-spoonful of salt, a tea-spoonful of white pepper, and a tea-spoonful of finely-minced parsley. Put them in a pie-dish, take out some of the bones to stew down for gravy, and pour over them half a quarter of a pint of cold water. Line the edges of the dish with a good crust, cover it with the same, and bake in a moderate oven. When the pie is sufficiently cooked, pour in a little good stock or meat jelly. Lamb pie is usually eaten cold. Time to bake, an hour and a half. Probable cost, 2s. 6d. Sufficient for four or five persons.
A plain English lid-only pie of the sort meant to be baked in the morning and eaten cold at supper. Two details carry it: the very small amount of liquid that goes in before baking, and the stock added afterwards to set as jelly.
- The hinge: liquid before and afterOnly a splash of water goes under the crust before baking; the meat and bones supply the rest, and too much makes the pastry sodden. The good stock goes in after baking, as the recipe directs, and is usually poured through a vent cut in the lid while the pie is still hot, so it sets to jelly as it cools.
- "Half a quarter of a pint"An eighth of an imperial pint, so 2½ fl oz — a scant third of a US cup, about 70 ml. Not a typo for a larger quantity.
- A dessert-spoonfulConventionally reckoned as two teaspoons, though Victorian spoon measures were not standardised. Two teaspoons of salt to two pounds of bone-in meat suits a pie eaten cold, where seasoning always reads flatter.
- Moderate ovenUsually reckoned at around 350°F / 175°C, though the book gives no figure. An hour and a half suits breast of lamb on the bone; if the crust colours before the time is up, lay foil loosely over it.
- Breast of lambStill sold, though usually by request at a butcher rather than off the supermarket shelf. It is fatty and gelatinous, which is exactly why it makes the best cold pie — but skim the fat from any gravy you make with the reserved bones, or it will set as a white cap.
- Lining the edges onlyPastry is pressed onto the rim of the pie-dish and the lid sealed to it; there is no bottom crust. Cut a vent, and keep a funnel or small jug handy for the stock.
- Meat jellyReduce the stock made from the reserved bones until it sets when cooled on a saucer. A commercial jellied stock or unflavoured gelatine bloomed in strong lamb stock does the same job.
- Yield and servingFour to five as the book says, as a main course with pickles or salad. Chill the pie thoroughly — at least six hours — before cutting, or the jelly will run.
- The price2s. 6d. is half a crown. Victorian cookery books of this kind routinely quoted a probable cost for household accounting.
The note that breast is "much the best" is characteristic: it is the cheapest of the three joints named and the one richest in connective tissue, which is what gives a cold pie its jelly. The English cold meat pie belongs to a long tradition in which pastry served first as a container and a preservative — the jelly poured in at the end fills the air gaps left as the meat shrinks, sealing the filling from the air. Lamb in particular was a spring and early-summer meat in Britain, and a cold lamb pie was standard fare for a sideboard luncheon or a picnic, since it required no attention once baked. The lid-only construction, with pastry pressed to the rim of a deep dish rather than a lined base, is the ordinary domestic English pie of the period, distinct from the free-standing raised pie of the pork-butcher's window.