Goose Pie
The old fashioned goose pie made with a standing crust, (the flour being mixed with boiling water, and therefore unfit for eating,) is now obsolete. They were generally sent as Christmas presents. Besides the goose, they contained chickens, pigeons, (all boned,) and various other things. They had standing sides like an oval wall, covered with a lid of the same paste, having, on the top, a knob, by which to lift off. These pies were expected to remain good a week; but generally the gravy became sour in a few days, even in winter, and however carefully kept from the air. The following is a receipt to make a fine goose pie for immediate use, and with a nice eatable paste.
Take a fine plump young goose, and parboil it, (in as little water as will cover it,) saving the gravy. Having removed the skin, cut all the flesh from the bones. Make a nice light short paste, allowing a large half pound of fresh butter to each quart of flour. For a goose pie you will require two quarts of flour and one pound of butter. Line a deep pie-dish with one sheet of paste, reserving the other sheet for the lid, which should be rolled out thick. Put in the pieces of goose, seasoned with pepper only, interspersing among it the best part of a smoked tongue, cut in thick round slices. Make a nice forcemeat into balls, about the size of a hickory nut, and add them to the filling of the pie; and some chestnuts boiled and peeled; or some round slices of boiled sweet potato. Having made a gravy of the giblets stewed, pour that over the other ingredients, filling the pie well, and heaping it high in the middle. Add a few bits of fresh butter dredged in flour. Pour in the gravy, and lay on the top the lid of the pie rolled out thick, ornamenting the edges handsomely. Cut a cross slit in the top, and fit into it a flower, or tulip cut out of paste. This pie is for dinner company, and to be eaten warm.
You may make a similar pie of a pair of fine ducks, either tame or wild. Canvas-backs and red necks are excellent for this purpose. To eat with it, have mashed potato, browned all over with a salamander.
On the shores of our southern rivers, where canvas-backs and other fine wild ducks are abundant, a pie affords an agreeable variety to the usual modes of cooking them.