Book of Days Tales

Today is the birthday (1898) of Clive Staples Lewis – commonly called C. S. Lewis and known to his friends and family as “Jack” – novelist, poet, academic, medievalist, literary critic, essayist, lay theologian, and Christian apologist. He was born in Belfast and held academic positions at both Oxford University (Magdalen College), 1925–1954, and Cambridge University (Magdalene College), 1954–1963. He is best known both for his fictional work, especially The Chronicles of Narnia, and for his non-fiction Christian apologetics, such as Mere Christianity, Miracles, and The Problem of Pain.

C. S. Lewis by his own admission was extremely fond of traditional British cooking — ham and eggs being his favorite, but also steak and kidney pie, fish and chips, fried sausages, bread and cheese, roast mutton. So once again I get to extol the virtue of this cuisine, much maligned by the ignorant.  To celebrate C.S. Lewis I give you veal, ham, and egg pie (what Sam Weller called a “weel and ‘ammer”), which I always used to make around Christmas time.  It uses what is known as “slack pastry,” unusual in that it is made with a mix of boiling water and lard.  The pastry is flaky on the outside, but sturdy enough that pies made of it can stand alone without a container.

© Veal, Ham, and Egg Pie

Ingredients:

1 lb/450 gm ground veal
4 ozs/110 gm ground boiled ham
2 tbsps fresh parsley, chopped
1 tsp powdered mace
¼ tsp powdered bay leaves
shaved zest of 1 lemon
2 medium onions, finely chopped
3 hard boiled eggs, peeled

Slack pastry

4 ozs/110 gm lard, plus extra for greasing the tin
7 fl oz/ 200 ml Water
12 ozs/350 gm all-purpose flour
pinch of salt

Aspic

2 tsps gelatin
½ pint /300 ml light stock

Instructions

Pre-heat oven to 350 °F/ 180 °C

Grease a 2 ½ pint/1.4 liter loaf tin well with lard.

Put the veal, ham, parsley, mace, bay leaves, and lemon zest in a bowl and mix thoroughly.

Sift the flour and salt into a mixing bowl.

Put the lard and water in a saucepan and gently heat until the lard has melted. Bring to the boil, remove from the heat and tip quickly into the flour.

First with a wooden spoon, then with your hands as soon as it is cool enough to work, mix the ingredients until you have a soft pliable dough.

Take two-thirds of the dough while it is still warm and roll it flat.  Place it in the greased tin and work it up the sides with your fingers, making sure it is evenly distributed and over laps the rim.

Press in half the meat mixture and place the eggs in a line down the center. Fill with the remaining meat mixture.

Roll out the remaining pastry for the lid. Cover the pie with the pastry and seal the edges.

Use the pastry trimmings to decorate the top, then make one large hole in the center of the pie.

Bake for 1 ½ hours. If necessary, cover the pastry with foil towards the end of the cooking time to prevent over-browning.

Leave to cool for 1 hour.

Make up an aspic jelly by dissolving the gelatin in boiling stock. Cool for about 10 minutes.

Using a funnel pour the liquid aspic through the hole in the top of the pie. You need to take your time with this step because the pie will appear to be filled, but then the aspic will seep down slowly through the meat filling.

Chill the pie for at least 3 hours or overnight (preferable).

To turn out leave the pie to stand at room temperature for about 1 hour, then immerse the tin in very hot water, making sure not to dampen the pastry top, for several minutes.

Cut into thick slices, and serve on a bed of watercress or lettuce, with hot English mustard (cook gets the end pieces as a bedtime snack).

Yield: 8-10 slices.