Bath Polonies

Mince pork as for sausages, season it with coriander, allspice, long pepper, pepper and salt. Bullock's skins must be used, and must not be filled too tightly. Put the polonies into warm water with a little red sanders to colour the skins, let them get hot very gradually, and as soon as the water is approaching boiling-point reduce the heat, because if the polonies boil the skins will burst. About half-an-hour will cook them in the hot water, and when done they will look firm and plump.

Rump Steak Pie

Put a layer of fine tender rump steak, or of fillet steak at the bottom of a pie-dish, sprinkle with pepper and salt, allowing a large teaspoonful of salt and a small one of pepper to each pound of steak. Skin and split some sheep's kidneys - two are a fair allowance to a pound of steak - cut each in four slices the long way of the kidney, and lay them on the steak. Mushrooms may be used either as an addition or instead of the kidneys. Place another layer of steak over these and fill up the dish with stock or water. An onion minced and boiled in the water or stock for the gravy is an excellent addition. The steak should be freed from all fat, which never bakes well, and makes the pie greasy and indigestible.

Having put all the materials in the dish, cover up the pie with puff pastry as at p. 215, and bake in a moderate oven until the gravy boils, and the crust is firm in the centre.

For a family pie, use beef instead of mutton kidney, and add a few slices of raw potato. For the crust use suet very finely shred, roll it in with the dry flour a little at a time. Make it into a paste with half-a-pint of water to a pound of flour. Three-quarters of a pound of suet to a pound of flour makes a good crust, but a little more suet may be allowed with advantage. Roll the paste out as thin as puff-pastry, beating it occasionally to break up the suet; put four or five layers on the edge of the dish, and do not make the cover too thick.

Veal And Ham Pie

Make and raise the crust in the same manner as for pork pie (p. 41). Cut a pound of veal cutlet, or of the meat of the best end of the neck into dice, and cut up in like manner a quarter of a pound of ham in about equal proportions of fat and lean. Mix the veal and ham together, season with a teaspoonful of salt and a teaspoonful of black pepper, put the meat in the crust, finish as for pork pie. Make a teacupful of gravy from the veal trimmings, add to it a quarter of an ounce of Nelson's gelatine. When the pie is nearly cold, take off the rose at the top, make a hole and pour the jelly into it through a funnel, and when this is done replace the ornament, and let the pie stand until perfectly cold.

Chicken Pie

Boil a chicken very gently for three-quarters of an hour with half-a-pound of bacon, two onions, and a sprig of thyme and parsley, half-a-teaspoonful of salt, and three pints of water. Take up the chicken and remove all the meat carefully from the bones, which return to the liquor and allow it to boil fast until reduced to half-a-pint, then strain it. Cut up the bacon boiled with the chicken into thin slices, lay them at the bottom of a tart-dish, and arrange over it the meat of the chicken. Roll half-a-pound of sausage-meat or veal and ham forcemeat into small balls, using the yolk of an egg to bind it. Lay these between the pieces of chicken, and, over all, the remaining slices of bacon. Having taken off the fat, season the gravy highly with about a small teaspoonful of white pepper, and one of salt, pour it into the dish, and put on a cover of puff-pastry. Bake in a moderate oven for an hour, or until it is done.