Minced Pie of Beef

While preparing for an 18th Century event last week, I knew the weekend was going to be hot, but we needed to eat. I pre-planned a basic menu of fruit, bread, and cheese. While planning I thought of all the wonderful meat pies that the 18th Century has to offer, and how many of them are served cold. I landed in Amelia Simmon's American Cookery, since it is not a large book, it was easy to find what I wanted to cook- Minced Pie of Beef, and it didn't require a lot of ingredients.

This makes a very large pie, so I quartered the recipe, boiling a little over a pound of chopped beef ( I did cheat a little here and used "beef bites" instead of chopping the beef myself). While the beef was boiling, I peeled and chopped two apples (pink lady ones this time) and mixed the raisins in along with about a 1/4 tsp each of cinnamon, nutmeg, and mace. Since I do not have a local source for suet, and did not have time to order any, I used the best alternative I could find- frozen butter. I grated one stick of frozen butter over the apples. raisin, spices.

Frozen butter in with the apples & raisins.

After most of the filling was mixed together, I added the liquid. While the recipe asks for wine of cyder, I didn't have either on hand, however, I did have port! Being perfectly period appropriate, I added what I had- using about 1/2 cup of port over the mixture.

Port ready to add to the mix.

By this point the beef had been drained and cooled off a little. I sprinkled a little kitchen pepper over the beef to give it a little flavor. All of this (beef & apple mixture) was folded together and placed into a dish.

Pie filling ready for the crust!

While the recipe calls for the mix to be placed in "Paste No. 3", I used a store bought crust (yes, I know, but it was the night before the event, and I still had stuff to sew). All in the dish, top crust added, vented, and placed in 350* oven. It backed for close to an hour. 

Pie ready for the oven. 

I realized that I had absolutely no pictures of the finished pie or of it being eaten. It was eaten for lunch on Saturday. It was a very hot day and I had placed the pie in the refrigerator in the office the day before. It was good & cold, and tasted great cold. It was nice to share the pie with friends gathered around our sutler booth. Overall response was that it tasted great! Next time, mince the meat a little finer. 

*This post is made in memory of the fabulous deep pie dish I made this pie in, upon unpacking the car fell to it's end & broke when it landed on the driveway*