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February 28, 1979, Page 6 The New York Times Archives

ONE of the real gems of English cookery is the “hand‐raised” meat pie. These pies are as common in London as a potato knish is in New York (although they are definitely of a different culinary class).

As with most culinary masterpieces, the raised pie is difficult to make. Difficult? I'm not even English and I'm guilty of an understatement.

But even an Englishman who runs a cooking school in New York approaches these pies with caution. “It's one of those great dishes which only the English do well and it's best left untouched by non‐British hands,” he said.

And that is most likely why, unlike English puddings, the pies are not known here.

What is a raised pie? The name is virtually self‐explanatory. Preparation of the pies, however, involves a rather long and complicated three‐step process.

A hot‐water pastry dough is made by boiling lard and water together, adding them to flour, and mixing at once. The warm dough is kneaded ever so slightly until it is soft and smooth. It is then fitted either into a high‐sided pan or mold and “raised” by hand, starting from the base and drawing upwards to form the walls of the pie.

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The pie filling can be pork, veal, ham and chicken, game or mutton. A dough lid’ is put on the mold and the pie is cooked for about two and a half hours.

Finally, a jellied stock is poured through a central steam hole that has been cut into the pie's lid. The pie is then chilled and eaten, preferably the following day.

Meat pies are usually served slightly chilled or at room temperature, with mustard or horseradish sauce.

Two preparations will immediately give most modem cooks reason for pause: pastry‐making and the stock pot (much less the preparation of a a stock that will gell naturally without the aid of gelatin crystals, although it is just as easy to put a veal knuckle or pig's trotter into the stock at the beginning to produce the jelly as it is to add a packet of gelatin at the end.)

The British need not worry about having to produce their own pies at home because excellent commercial versions are available everywhere. The food halls at Harrod's department store in London, for example, have these pies as prominently displayed as the sturgeon and caviar.

They are also a standard feature on the menus Of pubs and wine bars. A lunch consisting of a slice of meat pie, several kinds of cold salad and a glass of white wine or ale can be a superb and inexpensive meal.

Butchers and pork stores make their pies, too. In fact, it used to be the custom in English homes to have them delivered right after the milkman left his products.

Making Your Own

To the uninitiated, a homemade raised pie can be difficult. Most of the difficulty is in the pastry‐making, in acquiring the raised‐edge technique.

The steps are simple. The boiled lard and water are mixed with the flour and then kneaded, yielding a mound of dough that must be handled quickly and delicately. With practice, you will eventually acquire the raised‐dough technique, using a push-draw-upward motion.

But raising the dough seems all but impossible at first; you push, pull and the dough hardly moves. Then the cracks and bad breaks persist, but they are repaired and eventually the dough is raised to fit the mold.

While the stock is simmering - with meat bones, pig's foot or veal knuckle and aromatics-the pie inside the oven is sizzling and sending forth an aroma that can only conjure up the image of what it must have been like downstairs at the Bellamys’ in Mrs. Bridges's kitchen.

The jellied stock is added to the pie once it has cooled down sufficiently to be unmolded in such a way as not to disturb the delicate balance of the pie's structure; it seems almost as if the structuring of the pie relies more on engineering principles than on cookery.

The first time, however, that I reached the stage of pouring the stock in the pie, I watched woefully as my beautifully strained, clarified and naturally gelled stock seeped through the seemingly well‐done pie walls.


Cracks. So you must raise a dough that is a virtual hermetic pastry case. In subsequent attempts I have in‐’ spected the raw pie casing in bright sunlight for cracks.

My first pie, served without the jellied stock filling, was hard‐crusted and none too succulent. The mistakes: overkneading, overbaking at too high a temperature and general inexperience in handling this dough. I had followed recipes from British cookbooks but it was obviously time to develop my own.

Why the Hot‐Water Pastry

The purpose of using this dough is that it absorbs the meat juices, without the pie walls weakening, much better than a butter dough ever could. The pastry outside, then, should remain firm and crusty, whereas the inside texture is soft.

Only with practice and perhaps a penchant for doing the impossible, however, will you develop a successful technique. On another attempt, I unmolded a pie that burst apart, as though the meat juices within had the the force of a raging river.

Why bother?

Because it's different, it's truly delicious and it's a novelty that makes a good first course at a dinner or as a luncheon entree or buffet item. For the dedicated cook, too, it's a challenge but, as a word of caution, it is, of course, not something that should be planned for an important meal before you've mastered the necessary skills.

Once you appreciate the richness of this English dish, you'll also realize that what English food suffers from most is a bad reputation.

The best way to pare the pie is to start with the stock, followed by the filling and pastry dough. The dry measurements are given in pounds and ounces since, especially in making the dough, the standard cup measure is too arbitrary a standard for measuring the flour and lard. A good kitchen scale is an aid — if not a necessity. However, one pound of flour equals about three cups unsifted flour.

Hot‐Water Pastry And Basic Pie Assemblage

1¼ pounds all‐purpose flour

8 ounces lard

5½ fluid ounces water

Ground mace (about ¼ teaspoon)

1 teaspoon salt

1 whole egg

Eggwash (one whole egg mixed with 1 teaspoon heavy cream)

1 pint of jellied stock

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

2. Sift together the dry ingredients into a large mixing bowl. Make a well in the center of the flour mixture.

3. Bring the water and lard to a boil and continue boiling until lard melts.

4 Break the egg into the flour and stir, again leaving a well in the center.

5. Pour the hot water and lard into flour and egg mixture and stir at once with a wooden spoon or pastry‐blender attachment of an electric mixer until no trace of flour remains. Knead this lightly on waxed paper for several seconds, until the dough is smooth and all ingredients are thoroughly blended. Do not overknead. If dough is too hot to handle, let it cool, but it should be warm when you raise it.

6 Cut off, wrap and reserve about one‐third of the dough for the lid.

7. With a rolling pin, or by hand, lightly flatten the larger piece of dough until it approaches the shape of your mold — but do not roll out, and only flatten enough to shape.

8. Put the dough in the mold (see note) and begin raising dough, working from the bottom up, with a press-anddraw‐upward motion. Do this until dough is completely molded to the pan, one-quarter-inch thickness at the sides and slightly thicker at the bottom. If you are using an oval‐shaped hinged pie mold, make sure that you have carefully pushed the dough into the V where the corners meet.

9. Put in prepared filling (see recipes).

10. Use reserved dough to roll out a cover large enough to overlap the mold. Cut away the excess and reserve.

11. Brush the underside of the lid with eggwash and secure to the pie casing. With a portion of the excess pastry, make a decorative border around the rim, securing it with eggwash and crimping it decoratively.

12. Cut out a small central steam hole and into it insert a small piece of aluminum foil shaped into a funnel, to prevent hole from closing.

13. Cut remaining pastry dough into leaf shapes, brush underside of each with eggwash and decorate pie cover with them.

14. Place pie on a baking sheet and bake at 400 degrees, about 25 minutes. To prevent top from burning, cover loosely with sheet of aluminum foil.

15. Lower the heat to 325 degrees, hold the oven door open for about a minute, close, then continue baking for about two hours. Check pie during the last half hour — if crust is not browning, remove aluminum foil.

16. Remove from oven and cool until pie reaches room temperature, then chill in refrigerator for an hour or two.

17. Remove from refrigerator. Using a small funnel, pour unset cool jellied stock into the steam hole.

18. Remove aluminum foil funnel and set in refrigerator or cool place for six hours, to allow jellied stock to set.

19. Before serving, unmold pie and let stand at room temperature for at least an hour.

Yield: About 8 servings from an 8-by4-by-4-inch pie.

Note: The suggested pans or molds for these recipes are an 8-by-4-by-4inch French hinged pâté en croute mold (number 24 size), a similar sized “collapsible” loaf pan or a round 6-by-3inch‐high springform pan with removable bottom. All are available at Bridge Kitchenware, 212 East 52d Street, Manhattan.

Chicken, Veal and Ham Pie Filling

I chicken, about 3 pounds

1 pound leg of veal (boned weight)

1 ham steak, about 3/4 pound or slice of cooked Virginia ham

2 ounces brandy

1 teaspoon ground sage

2 tablespoons chopped chives or tops of scallions Salt and pepper to taste.

2 tablespoons unsalted butter

1. Skin and strip all the meat off the chicken, saving the skin, wings and carcass for stock.

2. In a meat grinder, grind the meat from the chicken legs with seven ounces of the veal and four ounces of ham. Season with half the sage and chives. Salt and pepper to taste and add the brandy. Work meats together until well blended, as in a forcemeat.

3. Cube the remaining chicken, veal and ham meat.

4. Fill pie, starting with thin layer of forcemeat, then the cubed meat and continue layering the two mixtures, seasoning each layer of cubed meat with remaining sage, chives, salt and pepper. The last layer should be the forcemeat. Dot top with butter before affixing pie lid.

Pork Pie Filling

(Melton Mowbray)

2 pounds boned shoulder of pork with a quarter of the fat left on (reserve the bones)

2 ounces dry white wine

1 teaspoon sage Cinnamon, nutmeg and allspice to taste

½ teaspoon anchovy paste Salt and black pepper to taste

Cut the pork into small cubes. Toss the meat with the wine and seasonings. Fill the pie shell.

Stock for Pork Pies

Bone from the shoulder of pork

1 pig's trotter or veal knuckle, well‐cleaned

1 carrot, cleaned and scraped

1 medium onion, studded with 3 cloves

1 teaspoon black peppercorns

1 bouquet garni, tied up in cheesecloth

5 pints of water, about Salt to taste

1. Place all ingredients In a deep pot. adding enough water to cover by an inch, about five pints. Bring slowly to the boll, uncovered, and keep skimming off the scum as it surfaces.

2. Lower heat and let stock simmer, loosely covered, about four hours.

3. Pour the stock through a strainer, discarding the bones and aromatics.

4. Return the stock to a clean pot and reduce to about three cups to concentrate its flavor. Cool for 15 minutes.

5. Clarify stock by adding one egg white, beating it to a froth in the stock.

6. Again bring to the boil, then remove from heat for several minutes.

. 7. Once more bring to a quick boil. Add salt to taste. Keep boiling for one minute, while skimming off the top. Remove from heat.

8. Line a very fine wire‐meshed strainer with a triple layer of cheesecloth, which has been rinsed in cold water and wrung out. (If cheesecloth is not available, absorbent cotton is equally effective.) Strain the stock through the cheesecloth. There should be one pint or more of stock.

Note: If you must, a quick stock can be made using a pint of canned bouillon and a packet of gelatin. Bring one and three‐quarters cup of the bouillon to a boil. Add the gelatin to the cold remaining one‐quarter cup of bouillon and let stand, undisturbed, for three minutes until the gelatin becomes translucent. Combine the hot bouillon with the gelatin mixture and stir until gelatin is completely dissolved. Allow to cool before adding to pie.

Stock for Veal, Ham And Chicken Pies

(Quick method)

1. Make stock with skin and bones of a three‐pound chicken. Add same aromatics used in the pork‐pie stock.

2. Cook this stock in same way, but only for about one hour. Strain, reduce, season and clarify as in previous method. Combine one packet of gelatin with one pint of stock. (See above note.)

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