Game Pie
INGREDIENTS for large pie. For the crust 2 lbs. of flour, 1 lb. of butter, 1 pint of water, 4 eggs (yolks only), a teaspoonful of salt. For the pie 1 large pheasant, 2 partridges, a few slices of dressed ham, forcemeat, seasoning of allspice, pepper and salt, gravy. AVERAGE Cost COST, 9s.
Make a stiff short crust with the ingredients given above, butter a raised piemould and line it with the paste. After preparing, cut the birds into small joints, GAME PIE, WITH JELLY. removing as much bone and skin as possible, and having lined the pie with a layer of forcemeat, fill it with the game cut up as described, the ham in very small pieces, and the forcemeat in layers, seasoning well. Put on the top of the pie, ornament GAME SOUP. it, glaze with yolk of egg, and bake in a moderate oven for 4 hours. In the meantime, make a good strong gravy from the bones, reducing it so that it will jelly when cold, and pour it with the aid of a funnel through the hole at the top of the pie. A few truffles or mushrooms are a great improvement to this pie, and any other game can be used.
TIME.-4 hours.
SEASONABLE from September to March.
A raised pie of the old English kind: a free-standing crust, boned game, and a reduced stock poured in afterwards to set as jelly. The hinge is the jelly — it has to go in while the pie is still warm, and it has to actually set, or the pie will be dry inside and cannot be kept.
- Oven temperature and time"A moderate oven" here means about 325-350F (160-175C). Four hours is right for a deep raised pie of this size, but the pastry will be dark long before the centre is done; cover the top loosely with foil once it has taken colour. The filling should reach 165F (74C) at the middle.
- The crust2 lb flour to 1 lb butter, 1 pint water and 4 yolks gives a very firm paste, far stiffer than a modern short pastry, which is what a free-standing pie needs. The recipe calls it a "stiff short crust" and gives no instruction about the temperature of the water; work it quickly and firmly, and keep it stiff enough to stand.
- The mouldA "raised piemould" is typically a hinged, often decorative metal mould that unclips to release the baked pie without breaking the sides. A deep springform tin, well buttered, is the practical substitute. Leave a hole in the lid -- a rolled paper or foil funnel keeps it open during baking.
- ForcemeatIn Beeton this means a seasoned stuffing, usually minced veal or pork with fat bacon, breadcrumbs, herbs and egg to bind. Well-seasoned sausagemeat with a little thyme, mace and parsley does the same job and fills the gaps between the joints of game.
- The birdsOne pheasant and two partridges yield roughly 2 to 2.5 lb of boned meat. Any mixture of pheasant, partridge, pigeon, guinea fowl or rabbit will serve; keep the total meat weight the same. Removing bone and skin is not optional here, as bones make the pie impossible to slice.
- Making the jelly setStock reduced from game bones alone is often short of gelatine. Simmer the bones with a split pig's trotter or a veal knuckle, or reduce hard and stir in about 1 tablespoon of powdered gelatine per pint. Test a spoonful on a cold plate before you commit it to the pie.
- Filling and coolingPour the jelly in warm, in stages, once the baked pie has cooled to just above room temperature; it will run into the shrinkage gaps and no further. Then chill promptly. A fully filled, chilled pie will keep three or four days refrigerated; one left with air pockets will not keep as well.
- Cost and yieldThe "9s." is a Victorian shilling price and tells you only that this was an expensive dish. As written it makes a large pie serving twelve to fourteen as a cold course, with mustard and pickles.
- SeasonableSeptember to March reflects the British game seasons, which still broadly hold. Farmed and frozen game makes the pie possible year round, though wild birds in autumn have the better flavour for it.
Raised game pies belong to the English cold table — the sideboard dish of shooting lunches, hunt breakfasts and long journeys, where a self-supporting crust served as both container and preservative. The jelly is the working part of the design: poured in hot through a vent, it fills the space left as the meat shrinks and seals the filling from air, which is how such pies travelled and kept before refrigeration. Beeton's book was assembled for households with cooks and game coming in from an estate or a poulterer, and the instruction to use "any other game" reflects the reality that a pie was built from whatever the guns had brought back. The named pairing of pheasant with partridge, dressed ham for salt, and truffles or mushrooms as an improvement, marks this as the grand version rather than the everyday one.