A grete pye

 
                                A GRETE PYE
 
 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           Boned breasts of chicken
                         Pigeon or wild duck and/or
                         Saddle of hare or rabbit
                         (not stewing meat)
                         Salt and black pepper
    1       lb           Minced beef
    2       tb           Shredded suet
    3                    Hard-boiled egg
                         Yolks crumbled
      1/4   ts           Each ground
                         Cinnamon and mace
                         And a pinch of ground cloves
    1       oz           Stoned cooking dates chopped
    1       oz           Currants
    2       oz           Stoned prunes soaked
                         And drained
      1/2   c            Beef stock
    1       tb           Rice flour or cornflour
 
   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-inch 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 220C/425F/Gas Mark 7. Add 1 or 2
   tablespoons of the beef stock to the rice flour or
   cornflour 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 160C/325F/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.
  
 
 
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