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Et  cetera  -   Et cetera (Updated)

Hi everyone, I have been updating the general file "Et cetera-Et cetera", look up to the older post dated Wednesday the 13th of June 2012.  Interesting topics about using lemons, limes, preserving,  and drying herb - bay leaf.

I hope you enjoy the post, I think it will come handy for activity in the kitchen.

Thank you all for visiting, and until next update.

Susy

Cooking From A Bygone Era

Re: Raised Pie of my older posts.  You will find the basics of the hot water pastry for the raised pie.  This pie is based on the cooking book by Eliza Acton.

FORCEMENT  FOR  COLD  PIES

‘THE VERY FINEST’ sausage-meat highly seasoned and made with an equal proportion of fat and lean is an exceedingly good forcemeat for veal, chicken, rabbit and some few other pies.  Savoury herbs minced small may be added to heighten the flavour if it is intended for immediate eating, but it will not then remain good quite so long unless they should have been previously dried.  To prevent it's too dry two or three spoons full of cold water should be mixed with it before it is put into the pie.

            ‘One Pound Of lean veal to one and a quarter of pork fat is sometimes used and smoothly pounded with a high seasoning of spices, herbs and eschalots, or garlic; but we cannot recommend the introduction of these last into pies unless they are specially ordered.  Mushrooms or truffles may be mixed with any kind of forcemeat with far better effect.  Equal parts of veal and fat bacon will also make a good forcemeat for pies if chopped finely, and well spiced.

            ‘Sausage-meat, well seasoned.  Or: veal 1 lb, pork fat 1 ½ lb, salt 1 oz, pepper ¼ to ½ oz, fine herbs minced ¼ oz, of which one-third Should be parsley and two-thirds thyme, the grated rind of half a lemon, a little grated nutmeg.  Or: veal and bacon in equal weight seasoned in the same way.’

(From Modern Cookery For Private Families by Eliza Acton 1845)

To anyone who wishes to bake a hot raised pie, this is a recipe for you.  I am sure it is going to be a delicious pie, please follow the recipe to a T.  I will be doing cooking soon, but at the moment only methods from the book or others that I like to share with you all.

Lamb Pie Hot Raised from a Bygone Era.

LAMB PIE HOT RAISED

BUTTER THE INSIDE or your cake-tin or pie-mould and stand it up on a baking sheet.  Line it with the hot-water-crust.  Have ready enough lamb chops cut from the loin nicely trimmed and wholly boned.  Lay these around the inside of the pie, alternating with a slice of raw potato about ¼ -inch thick.  Season it rather highly as you proceed, with salt, pepper, finely chopped peeled onions and chopped parsley.  Make a neat cover with the pastry.  Bake the pie about two hours in a pre-heated moderate oven (350 degrees F Mark 4).  When done, lift the cover, pour out as much fat as possible, add a little stock, made by simmering the cutlet bones in water to which a bouillon cube has been added, and serve.

 FOR HOT VEAL AND HAM PIES leave out the potatoes, but dip the veal in seasoned flour.  Raised pies are also very good made with fillet steak, or rump steak, cut in thin slices the size of the lamb chops, with a piece laid at the bottom and filling the pie alternately with seasoned meat and potatoes. They may also be made with calf's sweetbread and ham, but then a little white sauce should be poured in after the pie is baked.

(Information and recipes based on English Recipes and Others, And Now devised for Modern Use by SHEILA HUTCHINS)

Enjoy the recipes, have fun in the kitchen.  I have not cooked these pies yet.  If you tried and wishes to share the experience with me, I will be very delighted.

A picture of the last two red roses from my garden.

I am thinking of my grandson Milo Isaac, today 3 August 2012, he is one month old.  Happy birthday baby boy. Nana and Pop wish to visit you soon.

Today's Inspirational Words

We are so busy in our lives that we need to purposely

give attention to the everyday things that can make our

lives lovelier, such as keeping a vase of fresh flowers in an

obvious place, or several places in the house.  Planting

roses or other flowers for this purpose makes sense.

(Emilie Barnes, 'Things 'Happen' When ' Women Care)

Thanks For Stopping By

Until Next Post

Susy

Raised Pies (Continued)

TO RAISE A PIE

Second Method
Initial attempts at hand-raised pies should be made with tiny ones, which are less challenging to manage, and ideally, one should be shown how to do this.  It is beneficial to watch someone else, possibly the local pork butcher, do it.
MOULD the pastry while it is still warm, dividing the dough into two pieces, one of them using about a quarter of the dough,which is for the lid and should be put in a warm place with a cloth over it while the large piece is being moulded.  Hollow this out into a round with your knuckles and draw the sides up  to form a case, say about 4 inches across and about 1/4-inch thick, trimming the edges with scissors if necessary

Third Method
THE PIE can also be raised or moulded by hand round a 2-lb oiled or floured jam jar.  If a larger one is to be made, use a floured tin.  Mould most of the dough over the inverted jar or tin.  When it is up to the edge, roll it sideways to smooth the outside and loosen the pastry.  Trim the top of the paste with scissors.  Leave it till set before removing the tin or jam jar

Now you have three methods on how to raise a pie.  You can try them all or just follow the one that you like and comfortable with.  All the best to you all, have fun cooking raised pies.

A Recipe from the Edwardian Era

AN EDWARDIAN GAME PIE
With Pheasant or Casserole Partridge and Truffles
LINE and buttered cake-tin or pie-mould with hot-water-crust.  Put a layer of good pork sausage-meat on the bottom, cut up a brace of pheasants, or stewing partridges, removing the flesh from the bones, season them nicely, put them in the pie with 3 sliced hard-boiled eggs, 1 sliced (tinned) truffle and the truffle liquid from the little tin.  Make small round balls of the remaining sausage-meat, using about 1 lb all together, and add these.  Pour in a bit of game stock (made from the pheasant or partridge bones).  Put on the pastry lid, etc.  Bake 2 hours in a moderate oven,.  Mix a little aspic powder according to the suppliers' instructions with some of the simmering stock from the game bones, pour this in through the hole in the lid.
Dish the pie, when cold, on a folded napkin, decorate with parsley

TO FILL AND BAKE
FILL THE PIE to the brim with the meat mixture.  Cut the small piece of dough into a round for the top.  Lay this on, damping and nipping the edges together to make a lid.  Make a hole in the middle of it and decorate with leaves and roses, or scrolls or lattice and so on.  Brush the pie over with the yolk of an egg, and pin a piece of paper round the outside to keep it in good shape. Lift it gently with a fish slice on to a greased baking sheet.  Bake it in a preheated moderate oven (350 degrees F Mark 4) for 1 1/2 to 2 hours according to the contents and size.  Remove the paper for the last half hour of baking, but resist the temptation to open the oven door until the pie has been in for an hour.  After removing it from the oven, add any new stock through the hole in the top, with the aid of a funnel, but let the pie get cold before taking it off the baking sheet.


I hope you like this topic about how to raise pie and the hot water crust pastry recipe (based on a recipe book: English Recipes And Others, And Now Devised for Modern Use by Sheila Hutchins)

Inspirations Words

The best way to make a child eat his food is to let him

see his parents enjoying theirs

(Home is Where the Heart Is)
August 2



Thank You For Visiting
Until Next Post
Susy

Sharing Recipes

We are now in August, the last month of winter, here in Australia.  I missed the Christmas of July 2012, the family has been so busy, doing their own things.  Even though I don’t celebrate traditionally Christmas in July, but usually I love to cook hot festive dishes that are suitable to be served in the cold day.

Next month is September; springtime is coming soon.  I like to share this recipe about how to make Raised Pies.  They are usually found on a cold table.  A raised pie can be simple but pretty or a very large and with intricate decorations.

There are hot raised pies, but commonly they are served cold, so they are excellent to be taken out for outdoor entertaining or a unique Pic Nic.

A special pie tin for raised pies

It was not easy to find the tin, it is good to have one

even though I don't use it often.

Recipe, Introduction based on the eighteen century:  English Recipes, And Others By Sheila Hutchins

Raised Pies

Many of the seventeenth and eighteenth-century pies were enormous, and some were of legendary proportions.  There were raised pies, which contained a whole ham.  They must have looked extraordinary, for the ham was first part-cooked and then skinned, and then a vast piecrust was raised around it, the gaps being filled with veal forcemeat.  The pie was then baked as usual in a large old-fashioned bread oven.  ‘It has a good effect,’ we are told, ‘if served cold for supper.’  There was even a raised pie, which contained a whole salmon, in one piece.

A The raised pie looks very well o a cold table, uniquely if carefully decorated.  In can also make a pleasant beginning to dinner.  Many of the more elaborate English raised pies were more like the now better-known French Pâtés en croute than the meat pies commonly seen today.

Hot -Water-Crust Pastry
Unlike other pastries, this is mixed with warm liquid. The pastry must be mixed quickly and let it be warm and yet not too hot so that it is easy to mould, or 'raise', into the shape of a pie.  If it is too hot it will be soft and floppy and may collapse, it too cold it will be difficult to mould it without breaking it.  Lard is the most usual fat for hot-water- crust pastry, but butter, or half butter and half suet, can be used instead and some cooks nowadays use corn oil

SIFT 1lb flour into a bowl with a good pinch of salt and make a well in the middle.  Heat 5 oz lard in a pan with1/4 pint of water or milk, bring this to the boil, then remove it from the heat.  Pour the liquid into the flour and mix it up quickly, in a warm place, kneading it gently and letting it stand in a warm place for half an hour to recover. Then roll it out lightly, on a lightly floured pastry board, and mould or raise it into the shape of a pie.  There are three main ways.

TO  RAISE  A  PIE
First Method
The easiest way for a beginner is to line the inside of a greased cake-tin with the pastry and bake the pie in it after the meat filling has been added.
An ordinary false-bottomed cake-tin will do, but better still are the unique tins made for baking raised pies. These are sold quite inexpensively by suppliers to the catering trade, and look most attractive, having a sort of fluted wasp-wast in the middle.  They are also convenient, being made in three pieces, which fall apart when the metal skewers are removed at either end, thus enabling not to take out the pie without breaking it.

From the book: English Recipes and Others

Now Devised for Modern Use

By Sheila Hutchins

BRUSH the inside of the loose-bottomed cake-tin (or pie-tin as described) with melted lard or butter.  Divide the pastry into two equal pieces, then halve one of these.  Roll out one of the small pieces into a shape slightly more significant than the bottom of the tin.  Tuck it into it.  Roll out the large part of pastry into a long strip to fit around the sides of the tin, but deep enough to stick up 1in. Above the top of it.  Line the hands of the tin with this big piece pressing it well into the pastry on the bottom.  Roll out the remaining portion of pastry to form a lid.

The pie tin for raised pies can be pulled apart for easy cooking.

Second Method

To Be Continued, Stay Tuned.

Thanks For Stopping By

Susy

Pictures Gallery 7

Cooking,  Garden, And  Flowers

 

 Lovely and colourful cooking for July, the garden looking great for winter and the orchids brighten up the rooms of the house.  The cyclamens have been so generous too.

More new pictures are coming soon; hopefully healthy recipes for cooking delicious food will be there for everyone to try.

Thanks For Visiting

Until Next Month

Susy