Mrs. Roundell's Practical cookery book

with cold water and let it simmer. Cut the meat into squares an inch long, and simmer them in another saucepan till threequarters done. Line a deep dish with good puff-paste, put in the squares of venison, season well, add half a pint of the liquor the venison was stewed in, and a little butter if liked. Put on the lid, leaving a hole in the middle as big as your thumb. Bake steadily, covering the top with a sheet of clean paper as soon as it is firm, to prevent it from browning too fast. Now make the gravy. When all the substance has been extracted from the bones and trimmings strain the liquor back into the saucepan, let it boil, skim it carefully, add a glass of port wine if liked, or a tablespoonful of currant jelly, and the juice of a lemon. Pour this upon a roux of butter and flour, boil up once, and add as much gravy through the opening as the pie will hold. If you have not a funnel, make a horn of stiff writingpaper buttered. Pour the gravy in very gently but quickly ; if you have more than the pie will hold send up the rest in a sauce-boat. Brush the crust over with beaten egg, and put the pie back in the oven until it is a golden brown. The pie should only be drawn to the door of the oven for these operations, and everything should be in readiness before it is taken out, that the crust may be light and flaky. To make the crust for the lid, take a pound and a half of flour sifted and dined, twelve ounces of butter, three eggs, a little salt, and a jug of iced water. Work half the butter into the flour, add the salt, and work up with the iced water, lastly adding the eggs beaten very lightly. Work out rapidly, handling as little as possible. Roll out three times very thin, adding the rest of the butter. Then roll an oval lid nearly an inch thick, reserving a second sheet for the fleuron. Having covered in the pie, cut from this extra sheet with a cake-cutter, leaves, flowers, stars, or what you please. Bake the fleuron on a tin sheet by itself, and brush it over with egg when you glaze the pie. After the pie is baked fix the fleuron with white of egg into the hole at the top. Bake the pie from two to three hours, guiding yourself by the size of the pie. In America this Venison Pasty is served cold. Leicestershire Pork Pie.— Take a neck or loin of pork, and cut the meat from the bones in one piece. Divide this into LEICESTERSHIRE PORK PIE slices half an inch thick, and then cut each slice into squares half an inch across, keeping the fat and the lean separate. Season only with coarsely-ground black pepper and salt, in the proportion of two-thirds of salt to one of pepper. Do not add sage, or any other seasoning whatever. Pack the pie as tightly as you can, using alternate layers of fat and lean. If this pie is not packed tightly the outside pieces will be dry and leathery. Cover as usual, leaving a hole, but in these pies no gravy is put in before baking. Bake in a slow oven. When the pie is baked, and whilst it is still warm, pour in through the hole a little lukewarm jelly, made very strong by boiling two pig’s feet and all the scraps for at least three hours, putting them on in cold water, and seasoning, when the broth is strained, with pepper and salt only. To be eaten cold.