A Fine Venison Pie
Cut steaks from a loin or haunch of venison, which should be as freshly killed as you can get it. The strange and absurd prejudice in favor of hard black-looking venison, (that has been kept till the juices are all dried up,) is fast subsiding; and no one now eats any sort of food in which decomposition has commenced. Those who have eaten venison fresh from the forest, when the deer have fattened on wild grapes, huckleberries, blackberries, cranberries, &c., will never again be able to relish such as is brought in wagon loads to the Atlantic cities, and which has been kept till full of those fine threads that are in reality long thin whitish worms, and which are often seen in very old hams.
Having removed the bones and cut the meat into steaks, and seasoned it with salt and pepper, put the venison into a pot, with merely as much water as will cover it well. Let it stew till perfectly tender, skimming it occasionally. Then take it out, and set it to cool, saving the gravy in a bowl. Make a nice puff paste; divide the paste into two equal portions, and roll it out rather thick. Butter a deep dish, and line it with one of the sheets of paste, rolled thin at the bottom. Then put in the stewed venison. Season the gravy with a glass of very good wine, (either port or sherry,) a few blades of mace, and a powdered nutmeg. Stir into it the crumbled yolks of some hard-boiled eggs. Pour the gravy over the meat, and put on the other sheet of paste, as the lid of the pie. Bring the two edges close together, so as to unite evenly, and notch them handsomely. Set it immediately into the oven, and bake it well. If a steady heat is kept up, it will be done in an hour. Send it to table hot.
Instead of wine, you may put into the gravy half a pint of black currant jelly, which, for venison, is thought preferable to red. Either will do.
Any sort of game, partridges, pheasants, grouse, wild ducks, &c., may be made into a fine pie, exactly as above.