*  Exported from  MasterCook  *

                               A Grete Pye

Recipe By     :
Serving Size  : 6    Preparation Time :0:00
Categories    : Dinner Pies

  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 to 50 minutes longer.

  Yield: 6 Servings

  Great pies. Take fair young beef, and suet of a fat beast, or of
  mutton, and hack all this on a board small; and cast thereto powder
  of pepper and salt; and when it is small hewn, put it in a bowl.
  And mix it well; then make a fair large pastry shell, and couch
  some of this stuff in. Then take Capons, Hennes, Mallardes,
  Connynges, and parboil them clean; take wodekokkes, teles, grete
  birds, and plum them in a boiling pot; And then couch all this fowl
  in the pastry. And put in each of them a quantity of powder of
  pepper and salt. Then take mary, hard yolkes of eggs, dates cut in
  in pieces, raisins of coraunce, prunes, whole cloves, whole maces,
  Canell, and saffron. But first, when thou hast couched all this
  fowl, lay the remnant of thine other stuff of beef about them, as
  thou thinkest good; and then strew on them this: dates, mary, and
  raisins, etc. And then close this pie with a lid of the same
  pastry, and put it in the oven, And let it bake enough; but beware,
  or thou close it, that there come no saffron nigh the brinks
  there-of, for then it will never close.
 

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