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Meat Pie with Potato Crust
1 1/2 pounds round steak 3 tablespoons shortening 1 cup boiling water 1/2 teaspoon salt 1/3 teaspoon pepper 2 cups flour 4 teaspoons baking powder 1 cup mashed potatoes 1/2 cup shortening milk Cut steak into inch wide strips and brown in hot shortening. Cover with boiling water and simmer until tender. Add salt and pepper, put the meat into a baking dish and pour the gravy over. Sift the baking powder and flour together. Work in the shortening, add the potatoes, then milk sufficient to handle. Pat lightly to fit the top of the baking dish, cover the meat with this, cut three slits across the crust to allow the steam to escape and bake for 25 minutes in moderate oven (400 degrees F.). Serves 6.
A braise finished under a potato biscuit crust — sturdy Depression-era cooking that stretches a pound and a half of beef across six plates. Two things need attention: the dough carries no salt, and the braising liquid is never thickened.
- Oven temperatureThe recipe calls its 400°F oven "moderate," which is hotter than the usual 350°F sense of the word. Trust the number, not the adjective: a baking-powder crust wants 400-425°F to rise and brown in 25 minutes.
- Salt the crustThe half teaspoon of salt and the pepper both go into the meat; the dough gets none. Add about 3/4 teaspoon salt to the flour and baking powder or the topping will taste flat against the gravy.
- Thicken the gravyNothing thickens the braising liquid, so it will be thin broth under a crust that soaks it up from below. Whisk a tablespoon or two of flour into the pan drippings before adding the water, or reduce the liquid to about a cup before it goes into the dish.
- The meat needs real time"Simmer until tender" is the only instruction; no time is given. Inch-wide strips of round will want roughly 45 to 90 minutes, covered, over low heat. Undercooked round is dry and stringy, and the 25 minutes in the oven will not rescue it.
- Mashed potato in the doughUse plain, cooled mashed potato with no added butter, cream or seasoning beyond what you account for. Warm potato melts the shortening and the crust turns heavy. Expect to need roughly 1/3 to 1/2 cup milk, less if the potato is wet.
- Handling the doughPat it out rather than rolling and work it as little as possible — this is biscuit method, and overworking gives a tough, close-grained lid. Cut the crust to fit the dish before lifting it on, and set it on hot filling so the underside starts cooking at once.
- Dish sizeA 2- to 2 1/2-quart baking dish suits this quantity. Leave an inch of headroom; the crust rises and gravy that bubbles over the rim will burn on the oven floor.
- ShorteningShortening is listed twice, 3 tablespoons for browning and 1/2 cup for the crust. Vegetable shortening or lard works for browning; for the crust, cold shortening or cold butter cut into the flour gives better texture than anything at room temperature.