A GRETE PYE

      Title: A GRETE PYE
  Categories: Medieval, Main dish, Meat
       Yield: 6 Servings
  
       1 lb Shortcrust pastry
       1    Egg white, beaten
            Until liquid
       1 lb Boned breasts of chicken
            Pigeon or wild duck and/or
            Saddle of hare or rabbit
            (not stewing meat)
            Salt and black pepper
       1 lb Minced beef
       2 tb Shredded suet
       3    Hard-boiled egg
            Yolks crumbled
     1/4 ts Each ground
            Cinnamon and mace
            And a pinch of ground cloves
       1 oz Stoned cooking dates chopped
       1 oz Currants
       2 oz Stoned prunes soaked
            And drained
     1/2 c  Beef stock
       1 tb Rice flour or cornflour
  
   No Christmas feast in medieval times was complete without a 'grete
   pye'. In some recipes, it could contain many varied meats, but quite
   often only two or three different kinds were suggested; change the
   meats suggested here if you wish. Use just over half the pastry to
   line a 23-cm/9-inch pie plate. Brush the inside with some of the egg
   white. Skin the pieces of breast and other meat if necessary and
   parboil them gently in salted water for 10-15 minutes.  Drain and
   leave to cool. Mix together in a bowl the minced beef, suet, salt and
   pepper to taste, the egg yolks and half the spice mixture. Add the
   rest of the spices to the dried fruit in another bowl. Slice the
   parboiled meat. Pre-heat the oven to 220C/425F/Gas Mark 7. Add 1 or 2
   tablespoons of the beef stock to the rice flour or cornflour in a
   small saucepan and cream them together; then add the remaining stock
   and stir over gentle heat until slightly thickened. Keep aside. Cover
   the bottom of the pastry case with half the mince mixture. Arrange
   the sliced meat in a flat layer on top. Scatter the chopped spiced
   fruit over it and cover with the remaining mince.  Pour the thickened
   stock over the lot. Roll out the remaining pastry into a round to
   make a lid for the pie. Brush the rim of the case with a little more
   egg white and cover with the lid. Press the edges to seal, and make
   escape slits for steam. Decorate with the pastry trimmings and glaze
   with egg white. Bake for 15 minutes, then reduce the heat to
   160C/325F/Gas Mark 3 and bake for 45-50 minutes longer. Serves 6 to
   8. Grete pyes. Take faire yonge beef, And suet of a fatte beste, or
   of Motton, and hak all this on a borde small; and caste therto pouder
   of peper and salt; and whan it is small hewen, put hit in a bolle.
   And medle hem well; then make a faire large Cofyn, and couche som of
   this stuffur in. Then take Capons, Hennes, Mallardes, Connynges, and
   parboile hem clene; take wodekokkes, teles, grete briddes, and plom
   hem in a boiling pot; And then couche al this fowle in the Coffyn,
   And put in euerych of hem a quantite of pouder of peper and salt.
   Then take mary, harde yolkes of egges, Dates cutte in ij peces,
   reisons of coraunce, prunes, hole clowes, hole maces, Canell and
   saffron. But first, whan thoug hast cowched all thi foule, ley the
   remenaunt of thyne other stuffur of beef a-bought hem, as thou
   thenkest goode; and then strawe on hem this: dates, mary, and
   reysons, &c.  And then close thi Coffyn with a lydde of the same
   paast, And putte hit in the oven, And late hit bake ynough; but be
   ware, or thou close hit, that there come no saffron nygh the brinkes
   there-of, for then hit wol neuer close.
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