Raised Game Pie – medieval recipe

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I could never really resist old or vintage recipes. Any recipe marked as “Granny’s” or “Traditional Family” buys me at once. How do you think I felt when I found this MEDIEVAL recipe on ReallyNiceRecipes.com. I lost my breath and immediately filled my shopping basket (I do shop online, yes) with pheasants and venison.

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Cooking process is a killer, honestly. It’s unbelievably long. The only thing that makes it bearable is that of those 30 hours you spend only about 2 hours hands on… Still – that’s definitely not the things you want to starts when guests knock at the door.

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Recipe:
(serves 20, cooking time 1 h 20 mins for the pie, 2 h for the stock)

For the marinade:
3 blades of mace
6 whole cloves
10 black peppercorns
4 fresh bay leaves
peel of 1 orange
100 ml port
1 sprig of thyme

Crush slightly all the spices, mix with port, add thyme and orange peel.

For the filling:
500 g venison
500 g partridge
500 g pheasant
300 g chicken breasts
250 g smoked bacon
500 g pork belly
1 teaspoon of mixed spice

Cut the game into thick slices, leave pork and bacon aside. Put the game into bowl with marinade, mix to make sure the marinade reaches all pieces evenly. Cover with a lid and refrigerate overnight. Mince the pork belly with a knife. Cover with cling film, refrigerate overnight.

For the game stock:
Bones and trimmings from game
2 onions
150 g carrots
1 tsp black peppercorns
10 juniper berries lightly crushed
150 ml port
2 l water
6 leaves of gelatine

Put all ingredients except for gelatine into the pan, bring to boil. Reduce the heat and simmer for 1,5-2 hours till its only 500 ml liquid is left. You’ll need gelatine at assembling point.

For the hotwater crust pastry:
670 g plain flour
235 g pork lard
100 g unsalted butter
10 g salt
3 whole eggs
350 ml water
1 egg

Mix flour and salt in a bowl, make a well in the middle of flour. Whisk the eggs a little and pour into the well, cover with flour. Heat the water, butter and lard in the pan till the fat is melted. Pour the mixture over the flour and mix thoroughly until the dough forms. Make a ball and wrap it with cling film. Refrigerate for 10-15 minutes. Then let the dough cool at room temperature for 20-30 more minutes. Take 1/3 of the dough and leave aside – it will make pie lead. Roll the rest 2/3 with rolling pin into a large circle enough to cover a high  8″ cake tin including the sides up to the top. There should be some overlapping dough edges, do not trim it yet. Refrigerate the tin for 30 mins.

 
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Assembling: 
Into the tin with pastry put all the game and meat in layers in desired order. Season each layer with salt and pepper. Make sure there’s at least one layer of pork belly on the top, so that melting fat would pour slowly all the way to the bottom, preventing the game from being dry.
Roll the 1/3 of the dough and cover the pie. Seal the edges really well, push the overlapping sides to the lid everywhere. Then trim the excess pastry with scissors. Make sure you left at least 1 cm of sealed pastry all the way round the tin. Use trimmed pastry to make decorations if needed. Make a hole or two in the centre of the lid to let the steam out. Beat an egg and brush the lid.
Bake at 200°С for 20 minutes, then lower the temperature to 150° and bake for 1 -1,5 hour. Take the pie out of the tin and bake for 40 -50 more minutes to golden brown crust.
Leave to cool completely.
Heat the stock. Dissolve the gelatine in it. Using a syringe fill the pie with stock through the hole in lid. Continue pouring the stock in until pie is full. Place the pie into the fridge, cool overnight.

In the morning it’s ready to enjoy!

 

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