Another offering from Katherine Windham’s Booke of Cookery and Housekeeping of 1707, this time some ‘pyes’.
To make a Calves head pye
Take your head & parboyle it, yn cut it into thin peices season it with salt, nutmeg & a litle peper, slice in ye tounge, & a handfull of sweethearbs[1] cut but not to small & some oysters & their liquor, yn have your paty pan ready covered with puffe past[2], yn lay in yr meat & some sliced Lemon, & peel minced with your seasoning, you may put in a marow or beaten suet, which will doe as well, when yr pan is full, cover it & bake it, just as you draw it cut up ye lid, put in a Caudle[3] of White wine eggs & some oyster Liquor, lay ye lid on again,
To make an oyster pye
Take a pint & 1⁄2 of great oysters, a litle parboiled in their own liquor well dryed in a Cloth, lay butter in ye bottom of ye pye, with some large mace & marow slices, & Lemon with ye rind, sparagrasse[4], Candied orenge & Lemon peel, hard eggs[5] & oates cut, season your oysters with nutmeg peper & salt, put ym in with some buter yn when it is 1⁄2 baked put in a Caudle[3],
To make a Caudle for a pye
Take a pint of good White wine or Sacke[6], ye yolks of 2 eggs a qu[7] of a po[8] of butter, sweeten it with suger, let it into ye fire till it is ready to boyle, yn put it into ye pye, and set it again into ye oven, make it a pint[9]
- sweethearbs: Maybe Sweet Cecily? I really don’t know. Or it may me a mis-transcription for sweetbreads, which would make more sense. ↩
- past: pastry ↩
- Caudle: a thin gruel made with eggs and wine (See final recipe). ↩
- sparagrasse: asparagus ↩
- hard eggs: hard-boiled eggs ↩
- Sacke (or sack): a fortified white wine, rather like sherry, imported from various parts of Spain and the Canary Islands. ↩
- qu: quarter ↩
- po: pound ↩
- make it a pint: presumably add extra liquid to replace what was lost in cooking. ↩
