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Squirrel Pie
Even folks who never go hunting with anything more deadly than a kodak should know how to make a squirrel pie. It's easy once they're skinned, cleaned, all hairs and stray ants wiped off with a wet cloth. Save the blood, for the blood of squirrels and rabbits is as precious as those last drops of any game gravy caught by the croutons. To keep the blood from curdling pour a little vinegar or lemon juice into it. Use the heart, liver and kidneys too. Cut the rest up in joints. Mix a pound of finely chopped beef suet with a pound and a half of flour, lots of salt and plenty of pepper. Stir in cold water to make a pie crust dough. Then butter an earthenware dish and line it with the dough, almost an inch thick. Lay in the meat and giblets, pour the blood over and enough water to fill the pie-dish half way. More salt and pepper, much more. Then put a dough cover over all, exactly as you would with a woodpigeon pie; wet the edges and make them stick tight so not a bubbling drop of gravy can get out, but leave a little safety valve in the middle for the steam. Bake about two hours in a moderate oven. When the top crust is yellowbrown put on buttered paper to protect its complexion. Take it to the table in the dish that made it, and when the pie is opened the squirrels begin to sing.
A steamed-then-baked suet crust over jointed game, in the English pigeon-pie mould. The quantities given are for a large family dish; the crust in particular wants scaling and thinning.
- Handle the raw meat with glovesSquirrels and rabbits can carry tularemia, which can be contracted through cuts and contact with raw blood, and also from undercooked meat. Wear gloves for skinning and jointing, wash boards and knives in hot soapy water, and cook the pie through.
- Moderate ovenRead this as 350°F. If the filling goes in cold, give the pie 15 minutes at 400°F first to set the bottom crust, then drop to 350°F for the remainder.
- Age of the animal decides the timingYoung squirrels are tender and two hours in a covered pie will do. Older animals are sinewy; braise the joints in water or stock until the meat gives before they go into the crust, or the pastry will be done long before the legs are.
- Thin the crustThe recipe's "almost an inch thick" lining is far thicker than needed. A quarter-inch lining and lid bakes properly and eats better.
- Scale the pastryA pound of suet to a pound and a half of flour is enough paste for a very large dish, roughly five to six cups of flour by volume. For a 2-quart pie dish, half that is plenty. Beef suet is sold by butchers and by mail; frozen and grated, it can be replaced measure for measure with chilled grated butter, though the crust will be shorter and less spongy.
- The bloodAcidulating it with vinegar or lemon keeps it from setting into clots, exactly as with hare. It thickens the gravy and darkens it. Skip it without harm if you did not save it, and add a little stock in its place.
- Salt with a lighter hand than toldThe instruction to add "much more" salt and pepper assumes suet crust and unseasoned water. Season the filling as you would a stew and taste the liquid before it goes in; the enclosed pie cannot be corrected later.
- Buttered paperParchment or loose foil laid over the lid once it has coloured, to stop further browning. Do not seal it down or the crust steams and softens.
- The steam ventThe hole in the centre is not optional — a fully sealed suet lid will lift or split. A ceramic pie funnel does the same job and supports the pastry.
- YieldTwo squirrels and a 2-quart dish will serve about four as the whole of a meal.
Squirrel pie sits at the meeting point of two traditions: the English suet-crust game pie, which this recipe follows almost step for step in its instruction to proceed "exactly as you would with a woodpigeon pie," and the American habit of eating grey and fox squirrel, long associated with Brunswick stew and camp cookery. Squirrel was ordinary meat well into the twentieth century and was treated in cookbooks alongside rabbit; its retreat from the table is usually put down to the cheapness of farmed chicken, though that is surmise rather than documented. The closing line is a nod to the nursery rhyme about four and twenty blackbirds -- "when the pie was opened, the birds began to sing" -- and the joke about hunting with nothing deadlier than a kodak places the piece in the era of the popular hand camera.