Cookery
Through the Ages
Recipes
from the Medieval to the Victorian ages.
Great
Pies
Take
fair young beef, and suet of a fat beast, or of mutton, and
hack this all on a small board.
And
cast thereunto powder of pepper and salt.
And
when it is well hewn, put it in a ball, and meddle (mix)it well,
then make a fair large coffin (pastry crust), and couche (bed)
some of this stuff in.
Then
take capons, hens, mallards, connynges (probably hens)and parboil
them clean. Take wood cocks, teles, great birds, and plump them
in a boiling pot.
And
then bed all this fowl in the coffin, and put in with them a
quantity of powder of pepper and salt.
Then
take mary (probably marrow), hard yolks of eggs, dates cut in
2 pieces, raisins of courance, prunes, whole cloves, whole maces,
cannell (cinnamon) and saffron.
But
first, when you have couched all this fowl, lay the remnant
of the other stuff of beef about them, as you see fit, and then
straw (strew) on them this: dates, mary (marrow), raisins etc.
And
then close the coffin with a lid of pastry and put it in the
oven.
Let
it bake enough. But beware, that when you close up the pie,
that no bits of saffron come through the cracks, for then it
will never close.
