Chicken Pie
Skin a pair of fine fowls, and cut them up. Save out the necks, backs, feet, livers, and gizzards, and the ends of the pinions; and seasoning them with a little pepper and salt add some trimmings or spare bits of fresh beef or veal, and stew them in a small sauce-pan with a little water, to make the gravy. Let them stew till all to rags, and then strain off the liquid; and while hot, stir into it a beaten egg and a bit of fresh butter, dredged with flour. In the mean time make a nice puff-paste, and roll it out rather thick; divide it in two circular sheets. Line with one sheet the bottom and sides of a deep pie dish, and put in the best pieces of chicken. Lay among them four hard-boiled eggs, sliced or quartered. Season well with powdered mace or nutmeg. The gravy being strained, pour that into the pie, and finish at the top with a layer of butter divided into small pieces, and dredge with flour. This is what the old English cookery books mean when they say—“Close the pie with a lear.”
A chicken pie will be improved by the addition of a dozen or more large fresh oysters, stewed. If you add oysters, take off the lid or upper crust as soon as the pie is baked, and put in the oysters then; if put in at the beginning, they will bake too long. Replace the lid nicely, and send the pie to table hot.
The lid should have in the top a cross slit with a nice paste flower in it. To make a paste flower roll out a straight narrow slip of paste, about four or five inches wide. Roll it up with your fingers as if you were rolling up a ribbon. Then with a sharp knife cut four clefts in the upper half, and when baked, it will spread apart as like the leaves of a flower.