Recipe By :
Serving Size : 6 Preparation Time :0:00
Categories : Main Dish
Amount Measure Ingredient -- Preparation Method
-------- ------------ --------------------------------
1 lb Shortcrust pastry
1 Egg white -- beaten
- until liquid
1 lb Chickn breasts -- boned
Pigeon or wild duck and/or
- saddle of hare or rabbit
- (not stewing meat)
Salt and black pepper
1 lb Beef -- minced
2 tb Suet -- shredded
3 Eggs -- hard-boiled, yolks
- crumbled
1/4 ts Ground cinnamon
1/4 ts Ground mace
1 pn Ground cloves
1 oz Cooking dates -- pitted, chopped
1 oz Currants
2 oz Prunes -- pitted, soaked, and
- drained
1/2 c Beef stock
1 tb Rice flour or corn flour
No Christmas feast in medieval times was complete without a 'grete
pye'. In some recipes, it could contain many varied meats, but
quite often only two or three different kinds were suggested;
change the meats suggested here if you wish. Use just over half the
pastry to line a 23 cm / 9" pie plate. Brush the inside with some
of the egg white. Skin the pieces of breast and other meat if
necessary and parboil them gently in salted water for 10-15
minutes. Drain and leave to cool. Mix together in a bowl the minced
beef, suet, salt, and pepper to taste, the egg yolks and half the
spice mixture. Add the rest of the spices to the dried fruit in
another bowl. Slice the parboiled meat. Pre-heat the oven to
220 C/425 F/Gas Mark 7. Add 1 or 2 tb of the beef stock to the rice
flour or corn flour in a small saucepan and cream them together;
then add the remaining stock and stir over gentle heat until
slightly thickened. Keep aside. Cover the bottom of the pastry case
with half the mince mixture. Arrange the sliced meat in a flat
layer on top. Scatter the chopped spiced fruit over it and cover
with the remaining mince. Pour the thickened stock over the lot.
Roll out the remaining pastry into a round to make a lid for the
pie. Brush the rim of the case with a little more egg white and
cover with the lid. Press the edges to seal, and make escape slits
for steam. Decorate with the pastry trimmings and glaze with egg
white. Bake for 15 minutes, then reduce the heat to 160 C/325 F/Gas
Mark 3 and bake for 45-50 minutes longer.
Serves 6 to 8.
Grete pyes. Take faire yonge beef, And suet of a fatte beste, or of
Motton, and hak all this on a borde small; and caste therto pouder
of peper and salt; and whan it is small hewen, put hit in a bolle.
And medle hem well; then make a faire large Cofyn, and couche som
of this stuffur in. Then take Capons, Hennes, Mallardes,
Connynges, and parboile hem clene; take wodekokkes, teles, grete
briddes, and plom hem in a boiling pot; And then couche al this
fowle in the Coffyn, And put in euerych of hem a quantite of pouder
of peper and salt. Then take mary, harde yolkes of egges, Dates
cutte in ij peces, reisons of coraunce, prunes, hole clowes, hole
maces, Canell and saffron. But first, whan thoug hast cowched all
thi foule, ley the remenaunt of thyne other stuffur of beef
a-bought hem, as thou thenkest goode; and then strawe on hem this:
dates, mary, and reysons, &c. And then close thi Coffyn with a
lydde of the same paast, And putte hit in the oven, And late hit
bake ynough; but be ware, or thou close hit, that there come no
saffron nygh the brinkes there-of, for then hit wol neuer close.
