[Sca-cooks] Meep! - Needing quick beef pastry recipe!

[Bronwynmgn at aol.com]

In a message dated 7/27/2004 3:41:10 AM Eastern Standard Time, 
paxford at dodo.com.au writes:

<<Anyone have a quick & easy beef pastry recipe they can send me?

I'm 3 days out from a weekend event and need one more pastry dish - beef for
preference; english or french recipe if possible (pre 1600's)>>

How about this one:

Pies of Parys
>From Harleian MS 4016, c. 1450, as redacted in Pleyn Delit and slightly 
adapted by Brangwayna Morgan

Take and smyte faire buttes of porke and buttes of vele togidre, and put hit 
in a faire potte.  And putte thereto faire broth, And a quantitie of Wyne, And 
lete all boile togedidre til hit be ynogh; And then take hit fro the fire, 
and lete kele a litel, an cast ther-to raw yolkes of eyren, and pouudre of 
gyngeuere, sugre, and salt, and mynced dates, reseyns of corence; make then coffyns 
of feyre past, and do it ther-ynne, and keuere it & lete bake y-nogh.


Pastry for a 9-inch pie pan (top and bottom) or ca 24 tart shells
1 ½ pounds mixed ground meat, including at least two of pork, veal, beef
1 cup each meat stock or broth, red wine
3 egg yolks or 1 whole egg plus one yolk
½ tsp. each ginger, sugar, and salt
¼ cup each minced dates, currants


Put the ground raw meat in a saucepan and cover with the wine and 
stock/broth; bring to a boil and simmer for 10 minutes.  Then drain all the cooking 
juices into a heatproof container, setting aside the meat.  Let the cooking liquid 
cool (preferably in the refrigerator or freezer) until you can remove all the 
fat from the top.  The draining and cooling step can be omited if you like, 
but I often get quite a skim of fat off the top.
   When you are ready to assemble the pie, line a pie dish with pastry.  Then 
bring the defatted juices to a boil; beat the egg yolks (or egg and yolk) in 
a bowl and beat in a little of the hot (but not quite boiling) stock.  Beat in 
the rest, still off the heat; then mix together meat, dried fruits, spices, 
and sauce and stir over low heat for a few minutes to thicken slightly.  Put in 
the prepared pie shell and cover with a top crust (unless you are making 
individual tarts).  Bake in a pre-heated 350 degree oven for about 1 hour (less 
for individual tarts).  As the mixture may tend to be pretty sloppy at first, be 
sure to slit the top crust to allow steam to escape; and it may also be wise 
to put a cookie sheet or a piece of foil under the pie pan.

The recipe does say pork and veal, whereas the redaction also suggests beef; 
I usually use a mixture of all three, or beef and pork, mostly because ground 
veal isn't always easy to find around here.  It makes a good solid pie that 
slices well and will hold together in the hand for eating.  I make 3 or 4 inch 
tarts of this every year to take to Pennsic for food for the first few days - 
they keep well in a cooler.

Brangwayna