Happy British Pie Week!

By Jove! Miss Windsor has certainly surpassed herself today! You see, in the spirit of British Pie Week, and my passionate quest in “Bringing food history alive”, I recreated Mrs Beeton’s Veal & Ham Pie.

You see, whilst searching for something frightfully unusual, yet awfully hearty and traditional which one could recreate for British Pie Week, thankfully, Miss Windsor stumbled upon Mrs Beeton’s Veal & Ham Pie recipe – in her 1906 edition of Mrs Beeton’s Book of Household Management – first published in 1861. 

Darlings, now you’re forbidden to turn your nose up to this glorious dish, which I must admit, is of an acquired taste; yet delightfully delicious (believe me, I was extremely surprised by how mouth-watering tasty this recipe turned out to be!) British, suet crust, meat-based pie created with an unusual concoction of ingredients such as sliced veal fillet or cushion, chunky bacon bits, hard-boiled eggs, a sprinkling of seasoning, followed by a “gill” (translation: 140ml or 5 US fl oz.) of beef stock – and nout more!

That’s right, darlings, you’ve read it correctly – boiled eggs, three in fact! Even Miss Windsor suffered a moment of doubt when she spied this rather interesting addition – a Victorian delicacy, I wonder? To to be honest, at first glance of this recipe, one presumed it could’ve been served during some kind of medieval banquet – curious to find out? Miss Windsor certainly is!
 
Okey dokey, I’ve just consulted one of my modern mentors: the jolly old internet, therefore, I discovered that we’ve been gorging on pies since the medieval times and maybe a trifle before then. Apparently, during the late 14th century a cookbook which included many recipes for all kinds of pies was written for the chefs of King Richard II. 

In fact, during such times a pie was commonly known as a “coffyn” or “coffin”, which means container. This was actually a stiff paste created with flour and water that would act as a robust vessel for baked sweet and savoury fillings. Apparently, in Elizabethan England, one would revel, “If it’s good, tis better in a coffyn.”

And rather interestingly, the Victorians were still making a similar kind of paste, which the cook of the house whipped together with ingredients such as flour, water, plus the addition of butter, egg, lard, or dripping. 

Also, during the Victorian era suet crust for meat and sweet pies was terribly popular and so easy to make – just flour, suet, cold water, baking powder, and/or sugar! I say, when Miss Windsor was a nipper Grandmother Josie advised that one must bring the pastry together with the blade of a knife, including the likes of suet pastry!

Therefore, I vividly recall Grandmother Josie reciting one of her mother’s culinary maxims, Great Grandmother Gertie’s to be precise, “Stir with a knife, stir up strife!” 

​​Darlings, I like to think it’s an old wive’s tale, but admittedly one is very superstitious, so if I ever find myself armed with a knife immersed in a bowl of pastry dough, I naturally mutter that rather ghastly phrase, which of course, as a matter of caution, I do so with all my fingers crossed, including my teeny toes!

Moving swiftly on, now according to the food history records, during the medieval times, one would feast on pies made with a hot water crust. You see, back in those days of beyond pies were an elaborate and exceedingly grand centrepiece of the banqueting table – How fabulous!

​They were baked in decorative moulds, often glazed, and on occasion would boast a stuffed animal or bird which would, of course, suggest the filling of the pie.

Just one more thing; whilst I scoured through the jolly old internet for snippets of information about veal and ham pie, I learned that many recipes require a hot water crust, and some recipes call for whole hard-boiled eggs, not slices. Therefore, suffice to say, I do believe some kind of version of veal and ham pie would’ve perched most comfortably on a medieval banqueting table.  

​​Darlings, now before you dash off to your kitchen to recreate this scrumptious slice of food history, I must say, if you’re a tad put off by the addition of hard-boiled eggs, then may I suggest slices of parboiled potatoes instead.  

Cheerio for now, 

Miss Windsor x

ALL PHOTOGRAPHY BY MISS WINDSOR – EXCEPT FOR 1940’S FAMILY PHOTO!

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Mrs Beeton’s Veal & Ham Pie

Prep Time 40 minutes

Cook Time 1 hour 15 minutes

Servings 6 hungry guests!

Author Miss Windsor

Equipment

• medium pie dish
• rolling pin

Ingredients

Suet Pastry

• 350 g (2 & 1/3 cups) self-raising flour
• 180 g (1 & 3/4 cups) vegetable or beef suet
• pinch of salt
• a sprinkling of coarse black pepper
• cold water
• whisked egg for the glaze

Pie Filling

• 680 g approx. (1.5 lbs US) lean veal (fillet or cushion) cut into neat slices by your butcher!
• 220 g (1 heaped cup) cooked bacon bits – diced
• 3 hard-boiled eggs or parboiled potatoes – thinly sliced
• 1 heaped teaspoon of dried mixed herbs
• 1 heaped tablespoon of chopped fresh parsley
• 140 ml (5 US fl oz.) beef stock
• salt and pepper

Instructions

Suet Pastry

• Pre-heat oven to 180*C / 160*C Fan / 355* F / gas mark 4.
• First off, let’s get cracking with the suet pastry! Into a large mixing bowl sieve the flour, then add the suet, salt, and pepper. Mix well.
• Add a few drops of cold water at a time and with a curving motion mix with a knife.
• Darlings, this pastry must not be dry, so add enough water and continue to mix with a knife until the dough is quite sticky.
• Now using you’re pretty little mitts, bring the dough together until it’s rather smooth and elastic. Cover and rest for a while.

The Filling

• Into your pie dish of choice, arrange a layer of veal and season with salt and pepper. Then add a layer of sliced boiled egg (or potatoes) and some cooked bacon bits. Season with mixed herbs and chopped parsley.
• Repeat step one until you have finished the ingredients.
• Pour over the stock and set to one side – How spiffing!
• Darlings take 3/4 of your dough and place onto a floured surface and start gently rolling until you’ve formed a circle or square shape to cover your choice of vessel. Oh, and please make sure that your pastry lid is rolled fairly thick – Ta very muchly!
• Cover the pie filling with the pastry and carefully trim off the edges.
• Now onto the creative bit – How exciting! Using the last of your dough festoon your pie with some decorative leaves and stick them onto the lid with some whisked egg.
• Darlings, you will probably have some left-over pastry, which one may use if needs must, or alternatively why not make one or two jam puffs out of the leftovers!
• Once festooned with pretty leaves, brush the whole pie lid with whisked egg.
• Pop in the oven and bake for exactly 1 and 1/4 hours.
• Serve piping hot with a dash of gravy and some seasonal vegetables – voila!

The post Mrs Beeton’s Veal & Ham Pie! appeared first on Miss Windsor's Delectables.

Hello, darlings! 
 
Happy British Pie Week! 
 
I say, my dear fellows, in the spirit of British Pie Week Miss Windsor’s been having an absolute blast reviving age-old recipes from the past! So, just in the nick of time before this wonderful week comes to an end, one wished to “Spitfire” back to the British wartime days and recreate something frightfully healthful and wholesome – a dish Grandmother Josie would’ve certainly approved of! 
 
May I present the rather delectable and exceedingly homely Miss Windsor’s Wartime Meatless Farmhouse Pie – How splendid! You see, I stumbled upon two terribly toothsome and similar pie recipes in my copy of Recipes of the 1940’s by Irene Veal. Therefore, my version is a fusion of both, just minus the meat! And evidently, darlings, you’ll soon discover that the operative word for British Pie Week in the Miss Windsor household is VEAL! ​

You’ll be pleased to know, that this easy, yet frightfully filling recipe is created with an abundance of vegetables such as carrots (which were plentiful during WWII), potatoes, swede, onion, seasoning, mixed dried herbs, little vegetable stock, and the piece de resistance – the wartime luxury of tinned peas!

Oh, and thank the dear Lord (Woolton!) that I had a little suet plus enough flour in my green and cream enamel flour tin to make some dough – so I covered this delightful concoction with a thick, feathery, rather mouth-watering blanket of suet pastry.  ​

A quick word about the courageous carrot! I’m proud to say that during WWII carrots played an important role in feeding the nation. The UK Ministry of Food encouraged the good folks of Britain to substitute rationed goods for carrots instead, therefore, the Agricultural Ministry increased the commercial production of this life-saving culinary asset.

Thankfully, particularly orange carrots, they’re bursting with vital nutrients such as “vitamin A”, and so are known to be “good for one’s eyesight” – bloomin’ marvellous! Also, do you have any idea how many dishes one can rustle up with our trusty carrot? Well, my dears, purely for your delectation, may I indulge you with the following:  Mrs Beeton’s Carrot Pudding, carrot soup, carrot jam, carrot cookies, carrot fudge, carrot cake, carrot tart, and so on!

Oh, and one of the recipes I based my fabulous version on originally required “very little meat”, any kind of meat, in fact, including Great Britain’s beloved bacon!

Unfortunately, Miss Windsor used every last scrap of meat from her rather sparse larder to recreate her first offering to British Pie Week – Mrs Beeton’s Veal & Ham Pie, which one discovered in one’s 1906 version of Mrs Beeton’s Book of Household Management, first published in 1861. ​

Darlings, I must divulge, in the Miss Windsor household we’ve regretfully used up all of our meat and egg rations for the entire week on that blasted pie, “Oh, dearie me!” I hear you squeal with oodles of concern! You see, as one will appreciate, Mrs Beeton’s mouth-watering recipe, evidently, is an exquisite Victorian dish of an acquired taste!

It called for plenty of veal, sliced hard-boiled eggs, seasoning, plus a dash of beef stock – and nothing more! I say, the pie dish was packed to the rafters with meat, and it took days to munch our way through this somewhat Victorian overindulgence! 

I must admit, I’ve been a trifle reckless with our precious rations, but nevertheless, Miss Windsor has certainly prevailed, and will not see anyone go hungry in wartime Britain! Thankfully, vegetables are not rationed here, so without further ado, I whipped up this delightful pie which is full to the brim with nutritious vegetables, plus the addition of a small tin of garden peas that I found lurking behind a rusty old tin of Bird’s Custard powder – How spiffing! 

​Plus I threw in a smattering of garlic that I saved from dear Winnie’s allotment, which I chopped and dried during the summer months in readiness for a glorious pie moment like this!

Darlings I’m feeling awfully parched now! So, before I pop off to warm up my darling Brown Betty teapot for a well-deserved cuppa, to be, of course, supped from my sage green Wood’s Ware Beryl cup and saucer. I must say in the Miss Windsor household, not a thing is wasted, therefore, Grandmother Josie often trumpeted, “Waste not, want not!”

Of course, she was absolutely correct, as I have very fond memories of my darling grandmother saving anything from a few grains of cooked rice, half a small boiled potato, to a handful of cheese crumbs that one would store in a Tupperware container and used to whip-up the suppertime classic of Welsh rarebit – I dare say, you never know when that morsel of food may come in handy!

​So, come along darlings, join the jolly old war effort and Eat for Victory! ​

Miss Windsor x

​If you fancy recreating another wartime recipe, then why not try:

MISS WINDSOR’S BEETROOT & GREEN BEAN FRITTERS! 

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Miss Windsor’s Wartime Meatless Farmhouse Pie!

Prep Time 40 minutes

Cook Time 30 minutes

Servings 6 hungry guests!

Author Miss Windsor

Equipment

• medium pie dish
• rolling pin

Ingredients

Suet Pastry

• 350 g (2 & 1/3 cups) self-raising flour
• 180 g (1 & 3/4 cups) vegetable or beef suet
• pinch of salt
• a sprinkling of coarse black pepper
• cold water
• whisked egg for the glaze

Pie Filling

• 4 medium potatoes
• 4 large carrots
• 1 medium onion
• ½ large swede
• 1 small tin of garden peas
• a handful of fresh chopped parsley
• 4 heaped teaspoons of mixed dried herbs
• some fresh thyme
• little vegetable stock
• salt and pepper
• 2 or 3 garlic cloves (or the equivalent of dried chopped garlic)
• smattering of flour

Instructions

Suet Pastry

• Pre-heat oven to 190*C / 170*C Fan / 375* F / gas mark 5.
• First off, let’s get cracking with the suet pastry! Into a large mixing bowl sieve the flour, then add the suet, salt, and pepper. Mix well.
• Add a few drops of cold water at a time and with a curving motion mix with a knife.
• Darlings, this pastry must not be dry, so add enough water and continue to mix with a knife until the dough is quite sticky.
• Now using you’re pretty little mitts, bring the dough together until it’s rather smooth and elastic. Cover and rest for a while.

The Filling

• Chop the potatoes into chunky pieces and swede into small cubes. Parboil in vegetable stock, and when done set to one side and keep the vegetable stock.
• Cut the carrots into small cubes, then dice the onion and garlic. Transfer to a large frying pan and add the peas. Season lightly with salt and pepper and fry until browned in a drop or two of oil.
• Add the fresh parsley and thyme, then scatter over the dried mixed herbs and give it a jolly good stir.
• Transfer the parboiled potatoes and swede to the frying pan, add a smattering of flour and thoroughly mix together.
• Darlings, now pour in enough stock to wet the ingredients and fry everything together for a few minutes until well-mixed.
• Next, grab your pie dish and carefully spoon in the vegetable mixture.
• Now, take 3/4 of your dough and place onto a floured surface and start gently rolling until you’ve formed a circle or square shape to cover your choice of vessel. Oh, and please make sure that your pastry lid is rolled fairly thick – Ta very muchly!
• Cover the pie filling with the pastry and carefully trim off the edges.
• Now onto the creative bit – How exciting! Using the last of your dough festoon your pie with some decorative leaves and stick them onto the lid with some whisked egg.
• Darlings, you will probably have some left-over pastry, which one may use if needs must, or alternatively why not make one or two jam puffs out of the leftovers!
• Once festooned with pretty leaves, brush the whole pie lid with whisked egg.
• Pop in the oven and bake for approximately 30 minutes until the pastry is golden brown and risen.
• Serve piping hot with a dash of gravy – that’s if you have a bit leftover from your Sunday roast dinner, if not then ‘hard cheese’!

The post Miss Windsor’s Wartime Meatless Farmhouse Pie! appeared first on Miss Windsor's Delectables.