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Mushroom-and-Beefsteak Pie
Chop 1 quart of mushrooms or cut them in small pieces, season with salt and pepper, and add 1 pound of round steak chopped through the meat chopper, with a little onion run through the chopper at the same time. Add a little chopped suet or marrow, or a tablespoonful of butter. Mix all thoroughly, and stew slowly until tender with just enough water or good stock to keep it moist, keeping it closely covered.
Make a good crust as for any meat pie, line a buttered baking-dish and bake in a quick oven until lightly browned. Fill with the mushrooms and meat, season more if necessary, and have enough liquor to make a little gravy. Cover with a top crust, cut slashes in the top, and lay bits of butter over and bake in a rather hot oven until the crust is done and nicely browned. Serve at once in the dish in which it is baked.
A two-crust meat pie whose filling is fully cooked before it ever reaches the pastry, so the baking is only about the crust. The one thing to watch is liquid: too much and the bottom crust dissolves, too little and there is no gravy.
- A quart of mushroomsMeasured by volume after chopping, this is somewhere around 12 oz to 1 lb of fresh mushrooms. Common button or cremini will do; they throw a good deal of water as they stew, so add stock sparingly at first.
- Oven temperaturesNeither 'quick' nor 'rather hot' had a fixed value; both point to something in the 400-450F range in modern terms. Pre-bake the lined dish at the upper end until set and just coloured, then bake the assembled pie at a similar heat until the crust is done and browned.
- Round steak through the chopperThis is simply coarse-ground round. Buying ground round is equivalent, though grinding a piece of round yourself gives a better texture. Grate or very finely mince the onion so it disappears into the meat.
- Suet or marrowBoth are still available from a butcher and both give a richer, more traditional result than butter. If you use butter, the tablespoon named is enough; lean ground round with no added fat makes a dry filling.
- Stewing the fillingSlowly and tightly covered will take a good while on low heat. Ground meat is tender long before the mushrooms have concentrated and the liquid has become gravy rather than mushroom water.
- Judging the gravyThe filling should be moist and glossy, not soupy, when it goes into the crust. If there is too much liquid, reduce it uncovered before filling the shell; a wet filling will make the pre-baked bottom crust sodden.
- The slashesThey are the steam vents and they matter here, since the filling is already hot and will push the top crust up. Cut them before baking, not after.
- YieldA pound of meat and a quart of mushrooms will fill a dish of ordinary pie size; the recipe gives no serving count. It is meant to go to the table in its baking dish, so choose one you are happy to serve from.