* * * * *

HOW TO MAKE PIES
OF VARIOUS KINDS

BEEF-STEAK PIE—­Prepare the steaks as stated under Beefsteaks, and when seasoned and rolled with fat in each, put them in a dish with puff paste round the edges; put a little water in the dish, and cover it with a good crust.

CHICKEN PIE—­Cut the chicken in pieces, and boil nearly tender.  Make a rich crust with an egg or two to make it light and puffy.  Season the chicken and slices of ham with pepper, salt, mace, nutmeg, and cayenne.  Put them in layers, first the ham, chicken, force-meat balls, and hard eggs in layers.  Make a gravy of knuckle of veal, mutton bones, seasoned with herbs, onions, pepper, etc.  Pour it over the contents of the pie, and cover with paste.  Bake an hour.

COCOANUT PIE—­Take a teacup of cocoanut, put it into a coffee-cup, fill it up with sweet milk, and let it soak a few hours.  When ready to bake the pie, take two tablespoonfuls of flour, mix with milk, and stir in three-fourths of a cup of milk (or water); place on the stove, and stir until it thickens.  Add butter the size of a walnut, while warm.  When cool, add a little salt, two eggs, saving out the white of one for the top.  Sweeten to taste.  Add the cocoanut, beating well.  Fill the crust and bake.  When done, have the extra white beaten ready to spread over the top.  Return to the oven and brown lightly.

CREAM PIE—­Take eight eggs, eight ounces pounded sugar, eight ounces flour, put all together into a stew-pan with two glasses of milk, stir until it boils, then add quarter pound of butter, and quarter pound of almonds, chopped fine; mix well together, make paste, roll it out half an inch thick, cut out a piece the size of a teaplate, put in a baking tin, spread out on it the cream, and lay strips of paste across each way and a plain broad piece around the edge, egg and sugar the top and bake in a quick oven.

FISH PIE—­Pike, perch and carp may be made into very savory pies if cut into fillets, seasoned and baked in paste, sauce made of veal broth, or cream put in before baking.

GAME PIE—­Divide the birds, if large, into pieces or joints.  They may be pheasants, partridges, etc.  Add a little bacon or ham.  Season well.  Cover with puff paste, and bake carefully.  Pour into the pie half a cupful of melted butter, the juice of a lemon, and a glass of sherry, when rather more than half baked.

GIBLET PIE—­Clean the giblets well; stew with a little water, onion, pepper, salt, sweet herbs, till nearly done.  Cool, and add beef, veal or mutton steaks.  Put the liquor of the stew to the giblets.  Cover with paste, and when the pie is baked, pour into it a large teacupful of cream.  LAMB PASTY—­Bone the lamb, cut it into square pieces; season with salt, pepper, cloves, mace, nutmeg, and minced thyme; lay in some beef suet, and the lamb upon it, making a high border about it; then turn over the paste close, and bake it.  When it is enough, put in some claret, sugar, vinegar, and the yolks of eggs, beaten, together.  To have the sauce only savory, and not sweet, let it be gravy only, or the baking of bones in claret.