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Mutton Pot Pie, American
Cut into one-inch squares the meat from the leg of mutton left over from yesterday. Heat in a saucepan two tablespoons good melted lard, adding two finely minced onions, one ounce minced, lean, raw ham and two finely minced green peppers; brown for five minutes, occasionally mixing; then add the mutton and four peeled, crushed red tomatoes. Season with a teaspoon salt and a saltspoon grated nutmeg. Stir a little, then add two gills of demi-glace. Plunge two medium potatoes, cut into half-inch-square pieces, into boiling water for eight minutes. Drain and add to the mutton. Mix well and cook for ten minutes more. Transfer the mutton to an earthenware baking dish; sprinkle one teaspoon chopped parsley, mixed with a clove chopped garlic, over the stew. Cover the top with a pie paste. Glaze the surface with a beaten egg. Make two small incisions on the surface, in the centre, with the point of a knife. Place in the oven to bake for fifteen minutes. Remove and send to the table in the same dish.
A next-day dish built on cooked leftover mutton, so the oven stage is only long enough to bake the crust. The written method assumes you already have demi-glace on hand.
- Gills and saltspoonsTwo gills is one cup. A saltspoon is about 1/4 teaspoon, which is the right amount of nutmeg here — more will dominate the lamb.
- Oven heatNo temperature is given. Fifteen minutes is only enough to set and colour pastry, so bake hot, around 425F. The filling goes in already cooked and hot.
- Demi-glaceEspagnole and brown stock reduced together by about half, a standing item in professional kitchens. A cup of strong reduced beef or lamb stock, lightly thickened with a beurre manie, does the same job; a cup of thin stock will leave the filling watery under the crust.
- The muttonThis is a leftover recipe: the meat is already cooked, though the recipe does not say by what method. The ten minutes of simmering is to marry the sauce, not to tenderise, so do not extend it or the cubes will shred. Modern lamb leg will serve; true mutton is mostly found at halal and specialist butchers.
- Pastry quantityThe original gives no pastry recipe or weight. Reckon on 8 oz of shortcrust for a dish serving four, rolled to about 1/4 inch, with the two knife vents as directed so steam does not lift the lid.
- The raw hamOne ounce of lean raw ham means an unsmoked cured ham such as prosciutto crudo or a piece of green bacon, used as seasoning rather than as meat. Minced pancetta is the closest easy substitute.
- PotatoesEight minutes in boiling water part-cooks half-inch cubes, which is what you want — they finish in the sauce and again in the oven. Boiling them soft first gives a mushy filling.
- YieldEnough for four as a main course. Serve it in the baking dish as instructed; the sauce is loose and does not slice.
The heading "American" appears to distinguish this from the plainer British pot pie, and the seasoning is the tell: green peppers, tomatoes, garlic and a scrape of nutmeg suggest a Creole or New Orleans hand rather than the flour-thickened mutton pies of English cookery. The casual call for two gills of demi-glace suggests a professional rather than a domestic kitchen — a way of using up yesterday's cold leg, written down for readers expected to aspire to that standard. Books of this period gave a good deal of space to what to do with cold joints, a leg of mutton being commonly bought whole and eaten across several days.