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VENISON PIE (a l'Americaine)
Take three pounds of venison cut into small squares; place them in a saucepan with an ounce of butter; brown them well for six minutes, then add a table-spoonful of flour; stir well, and moisten with a quart of white broth; throw in six small white onions, a bouquet garni, and salt, pepper, and nutmeg to taste. Let all cook for three-quarters of an hour keeping the lid on the pan, and when done lay the stew in a deep dish; cover with a good pie-crust; egg the surface with beaten egg, and bake in the oven for forty minutes. Prepare a dish with a folded napkin, lay the pie-dish on this, and serve cold.
A straightforward braise finished under a pastry lid, with two details that catch modern cooks out: the original gives no oven temperature, and it tells you to serve the pie cold.
- Cool the stew before you cover itThis is the hinge. Pastry laid over a hot filling slumps and the underside turns to paste before the oven sets it. Let the braise cool to at least room temperature, then top and bake.
- Oven temperatureThe original gives none. For a pastry lid over an already-cooked filling, something in the region of 400-425F for the first 15-20 minutes, dropping to 350F for the rest, is a workable modern equivalent: the crust colours without burning at the edge.
- White brothA pale unroasted stock, veal or chicken, made without browning the bones. Ordinary chicken stock is the closest thing on a supermarket shelf; avoid dark beef stock, which fights the intent of the dish.
- A quartAn imperial quart, 40 fl oz, or about 5 US cups. That is a generous amount of liquid for 3 lb of meat and it will need reducing, or thickening with more of the flour, before it goes under a crust.
- The cut of venisonShoulder, neck or shank, cut in 1-inch squares. Three-quarters of an hour will not tenderise those cuts; expect 1½ to 2 hours of gentle simmering. Farmed loin or haunch is tender enough for the short time given but dries out in a braise, so it is the wrong choice here.
- Small white onionsPearl or button onions, peeled whole. Six is modest for this quantity if you want a fuller dish, and they can go in for the last half hour so they hold their shape.
- Bouquet garniParsley stalks, thyme and a bay leaf tied with string, or wrapped in a leek leaf. Fish it out before the filling goes into the pie dish.
- Serving coldNot an error. Cold game pies were familiar buffet and sideboard fare in this period. If you want it hot, serve it straight from the oven; the folded napkin under the dish is a serving convention of the period.
- YieldThree pounds of meat plus crust serves six to eight.
Cassell's tag à l'Americaine is doing loose work here, as such tags often did in late-Victorian dictionaries of cookery: it may well point to nothing more than a hearty, meat-heavy pie rather than any documented American original, though that reading is a guess, and the method itself is a plain French ragoût under a lid of pastry. Venison in a British kitchen of this period meant either a gift from an estate or a purchase from a game dealer, and it arrived with the reputation of being tough and strong-flavoured. The instruction to serve cold on a folded napkin places the dish squarely in the world of the cold sideboard, the shooting lunch and the ball supper, where a pie could be cut and handed round without a kitchen standing by.