1 lb shortcrust pastry
1 egg white, beaten
1 until liquid
1 lb boned breasts of chicken
1 pigeon or wild duck and/or
1 saddle of hare or rabbit
1 (not stewing meat)
1 salt and black pepper
1 lb minced beef
2 tbsp shredded suet
3 hard-boiled egg
1 yolks crumbled
1/4 tsp each ground
1 cinnamon and mace
1 and a pinch of ground cloves
1 oz stoned cooking dates chopped
1 oz currants
2 oz stoned prunes soaked
1 and drained
1/2 cup beef stock
1 tbsp rice flour or cornflour
Directions
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.
Servings: 6 servings
A Grete Pye Recipe brought to you by Recipe Ideas
Categories: Dessert; Fruit; Grain; Meat; Poultry
The History of Recipes
We can trace the history of written recipes far back into distant history, at least as far back into recorded history as the Egypt of the Pharoahs, and maybe even further. In practice though, generally, these early cookbooks were just primitive pictorial, hieroglyphic or cunieform recipes for meal preparation.
In fact, the oldest recipe found, according to historians are a few tablets in the Sumerian language describing the preparation of bread which is then used to make a drink, quite possibly a form of beer as it is recorded as making drinkers feel `exhilarated, wonderful and blissful`. Later on, we find a couple of interesting books published in the 1300s - one book published under the title `Forme of Cury`, and another, similary called `Curye on Inglish`. Don`t be fooled by the titles though, these books are nothing to do with the indian curry that is served today, but instead accounts of the types of food eaten by the upper classes of that time. Later on in the 1400s, people returning from the crusades brought back many foods and spices from the East, including spices such as coriander, parsley, and basil. These new culinary innovations created an outbreak in recipe books, the majority of which are kept safe in private libraries. For the next few years, the powerful and rich competed with each other to offer the most extravagent banquests, and as a result chefs and their recipes were greatly in demand. Notwithstanding that, it wasn`t until the 1800s that cookery and cookery books became popular. The Famous Mrs Beeton in the UK, and the equally well-known Fannie Farmer in the USA, devoted their lives to collating, testing, and recording recipes for their fellow cooks to enjoy. The introduction of the TV gave us TV cookery programs and the demand for the spin-off recipe books. And that pretty much brings us to the present day and the invention of computers and the internet, permitting everyone to access thousands of recipes like those on this recipe site. |
We hope you enjoy this A Grete Pye recipe.
