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Fowl Pie
Cut an old fowl into joints, divide the breast into quarters, and put it in a saucepan with plenty of water. Season with onion juice and the juice of half a lemon; cover closely, and simmer gently for several hours or until the fowl is tender. Strain off the gravy and season it with minced parsley, a bay leaf, onion juice, salt, and paprika. Return to the fire, stir in a lump of butter rolled in flour, and cook for one minute. Cut the meat from the bones and arrange it in a deep bake-dish; pour in the gravy, lay 2 hard-boiled eggs cut into slices over the top, cover with a good crust, and bake.
A stewing-hen pie of the kind written for kitchens where the bird was a retired layer rather than a young broiler. The instructions assume the cook knows a pastry oven temperature and a hot-pie assembly; both are worth stating.
- "An old fowl"This means a mature laying hen, tough and full of collagen, sold today as a stewing hen or soup fowl, often around 4-6 lb. A supermarket roasting chicken cooks far faster and will shred if given the same treatment, so shorten the simmer to about an hour if that is what you have.
- The long simmerSeveral hours is correct for a genuine old bird, and the slow heat is the point: keep it at a bare tremble, not a boil, or the breast shreds and the broth turns cloudy. Three hours at a lazy simmer is a fair target.
- Onion juiceGrate an onion and press it through a sieve; a tablespoon or two is a reasonable working amount, though the recipe specifies none. Finely grated onion, or a small quantity of very finely minced shallot, will do the same work.
- Reduce the gravyThe bird is cooked in "plenty of water," which leaves more liquid than a pie can hold. The recipe does not say to reduce it, but boiling the strained broth down to roughly a couple of cups before thickening will keep the filling from flooding the crust.
- Butter rolled in flourThis is beurre manié; roughly equal amounts of butter and flour kneaded together, whisked into the simmering stock. The recipe allows one minute of cooking, which is brief; the sauce should thicken enough to coat a spoon.
- Bake-dish and crustA deep bake-dish is any 2-quart casserole or deep pie dish. "A good crust" means short pastry or puff, laid over the top only, with the edges sealed to the rim and two or three vents cut.
- OvenThe recipe gives no oven heat at all. A hot start of around 425F to set and colour the pastry, dropping to about 375F until the filling bubbles at the vents, is one workable modern reading. Filling that goes in warm rather than piping hot helps keep the underside of the crust from turning to paste.
- YieldA stewing hen of about 4-5 lb will fill a 2-quart dish; the recipe gives no number of servings, but six is a reasonable estimate.