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Plain Pastry for Four Patty Pies
Sift together one and one-half cups of pastry flour, one-half teaspoonful each of salt and bakingpowder. Into this chop four tablespoonfuls of any shortening desired, and add slowly enough icewater to moisten, about six tablespoonfuls. The dough should be very stiff. Roll out and spread the surface with two tablespoonfuls of butter, fold over and roll again. It is well to let it stand in a cold place some time before using. Wrapped in a napkin it will keep several days in the ice-box.
Panned Lamb (with Oysters) I 1½ cups lamb, chop- 2 tablespoonfuls butped fine 6 oysters ter Salt and pepper Gravy or stock Heat oysters with butter. When they curl add meat and seasoning. Moisten with gravy or stock.
Cover and simmer ten minutes. Serve on hot toast.
Two recipes run together here: a quick rough-puff pastry for four individual pies, and the filling of chopped cooked lamb with oysters that goes into them. The pastry is straightforward; the filling's timing is the thing to watch.
- Do not simmer the oysters ten minutesOysters are done the moment their edges ruffle, which is a minute or two in hot butter. Add them at the very end, after the lamb has warmed through in the gravy, and cut the heat as soon as they curl. Ten minutes of simmering gives you rubber.
- Patty pies and patty pansThese are small individual shells baked in shallow tins two to three inches across, not a single covered pie. The quantity given is meant for four of them. The recipe gives no oven setting; a hot oven, around 425F, until the pastry is set and colouring will suit.
- Pastry flourA soft low-protein flour, roughly 8 to 9 percent protein. Substitute all-purpose, or use all-purpose with a quarter of it replaced by cornstarch for a more tender crumb.
- "Any shortening desired"At this period that would mean lard, beef suet or a butter-lard mixture, and in later years one of the hydrogenated vegetable fats. Cold butter or lard both work; whatever you use must be cold and cut in to pea-sized pieces, not creamed.
- The water is generousSix tablespoonfuls to a cup and a half of flour is somewhat more than many modern pastry recipes take, and the recipe's own instruction that the dough be "very stiff" is the guide. Add the water a spoonful at a time and stop when it just coheres.
- The butter foldRolling two tablespoonfuls of butter into the sheet and folding is a shortcut rough puff. Keep everything cold; if the butter starts to smear, chill the dough for 20 minutes before rolling again.
- The ice-boxAn insulated cabinet cooled by a block of ice, so around 45 to 50F rather than a modern 38F. Wrap the dough in plastic rather than a napkin and use it within two or three days.
- Yield and servingThe filling as given, a cup and a half of meat with six oysters, is two modest servings on toast, or enough for the four small pies if you are not generous with it. Double the filling if the pies are the main course.
Books of "left overs" formed a small genre in American publishing between about 1890 and the First World War, when middle-class households were being urged, by domestic-science reformers and later by wartime food administrators, to treat waste as a moral failing as much as an economic one. A joint of lamb or mutton was expected to reappear in different guises, and pastry was one vehicle for a later appearance, since chopping the meat fine and moistening it with gravy hides both dryness and small quantity. The oysters are not a luxury flourish here: East Coast oysters were still cheap and abundant enough in this period to be used as a seasoning agent, added to meat dishes for savour in much the way a cook today might reach for anchovy or mushroom. Panning, meaning to cook something briefly in a covered pan with a little fat and liquid, was a common instruction in period cookbooks and sits between sauteing and stewing.