company, more or less. The larger the pie, the finer the meat eats. The crust must be the same as you make for venison pasty. You should pour a little strong gravy into the pie when you make it, just to bake the meat, and then fill it up when it comes out of the oven. Boil some truffles and morels and put into the pie, which is a great addition, and some fresh mushrooms, or dried ones.
To make a pigeon pie.
MAKE a puff-paste crust, cover your dish, let your pigeons be very nicely picked and cleaned, season them with pepper and salt, and put a good piece of fine fresh butter, with pepper and salt, in their bellies; lay them in your pan, the necks, gizzards, livers, pinions, and hearts, lay between, with the yolk of a hard egg and beef steak in the middle; put as much water as will almost fill the dish, lay on the top-crust, and bake it well. This is the best way to make a pigeon pie; but the French fill the pigeons with a very high force-meat, and lay force-meat balls round the inside, with asparagus-tops, artichoke-bottoms, mushrooms, truffles and morels, and season high; but that is according to different palates.
To make a giblet pie.
TAKE two pair of giblets nicely cleaned, put all but the livers into a sauce-pan, with two quarts of water, twently corns of whole pepper, three blades of mace, a bundle of sweet-herbs, and a large onion; cover them close, and let them stew very softly till they are quite tender, then have a good crust ready, cover your dish, lay a fine rump steak at the bottom, seasoned with pepper and salt; then lay in your giblets with the livers, and strain the liquor they were stewed in. Season it with salt, and pour into your pie; put on the lid, and bake it an hour and a half.
To make a duck pie.
MAKE a puff-paste crust, take two ducks, scald them and make them very clean, cut off the feet, the pinions, the neck, and head, all clean picked and scalded, with the gizzards, livers and hearts; pick out all the fat of the inside, lay a crust all over the dish, season the ducks with pepper and salt, inside and out, lay them in your dish, and the giblets at each end, seasoned;
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