This section is from the book "Miss Leslie's New Receipts For Cooking", by Miss Eliza Leslie. Also available from Amazon: New Receipts for Cooking.
These pies have standing crust or walls, and may be filled with game or poultry, previously boned, seasoned, and stewed. They are generally made very large, and in winter will keep a week or two if closely covered. They are frequently sent a considerable distance, as Christmas presents; well packed in a close tin box.
To make the paste for a large pie: - Sift three pounds of flour into a pan, and make a hole in the centre. Cut up a pound of fresh butter, and two pounds of beef-suet, finely chopped. Put them into a clean pot, with as much boiling water as will cover them. Set them over the fire; and when the butter and suet are entirely dissolved, stir the whole with a spoon, and pour it into the hole in the middle of the flour; mix it with a spoon into a stiff paste, till it becomes cold enough for you to knead with your hands into a lump of dough. Sprinkle some flour on your paste-board, and on your hands; make the dough into the form of a cone or sugar-loaf, and with your hands smooth and flatten the sides of it. Then squeeze or press down the point of the cone; straighten the sides; and flatten the top, so as to give it the shape of a hat crown. Next, cut off from the top a thick, round slice, and lay it aside for the lid, and another slice for the ornaments. With one hand make a hollow in the large mass of dough, and with the other shape out and smooth the sides, leaving enough for a crust at the bottom. In this manner, hollow it into the shape of a straight-sided pan, leaving the wall or crust so thick that it will stand alone. Then fill it with the bones of the poultry or game, and some crusts of bread to keep it in shape. The portion of dough reserved for the lid must then be moulded on the inverted bottom of a deep plate, previously buttered. The lid may be a little larger than the top of the pie. The paste reserved for the ornaments should be rolled out, and cut with tin cutters into the form of leaves and flowers, or vine-leaves and grapes. These should be carefully placed in a wreath round the middle of the standing crust of the pie. A smaller wreath may be laid like a border round the lid, at the top of which place a large flower of paste, to look like a handle by which to lift it. Before you put on the ornaments, have ready the beaten yolks of two eggs; and dipping in a clean brush, glaze with it the whole outside of the pie, including the lid. Then stick on the decorations. Put the pie into a moderate oven, and bake it brown. The lid must be baked separately. When both are done, remove the bones, etc, from the inside of the pie, and fill it with the ingredients prepared, which must be previously stewed in their own gravy, with the addition of some bits of butter rolled in flour. Put on the lid, and cement the edges by glazing them with a little beaten egg. These pies are usually made with slices of ham or smoked tongue at the bottom; then partridges, pheasants, moor-fowl, and other large game, all boned; and the spaces between filled up with force-meat, or with mushrooms stewed and chopped.
They may be made with venison, wild turkeys, or wild ducks. Whatever is put into these pies must have no bone about it, and should be well seasoned.
The ingredients may be put into the pie, and the lid laid on at once, - pinching the edges together. In this case, it must bake three or four hours, in proportion to its size.
 
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