Tartes of flessh

PERIOD: England, 14th century | SOURCE: Forme of Cury | CLASS: Authentic

DESCRIPTION: Pork, chicken, & rabbit pie

ORIGINAL RECEIPT:

176. Tartes of flessh. Take pork ysode and grynde it smale. Take harde eyren isode & ygrounde, and do þerto with chese ygrounde. Take gode powdours and hool spices, sugur, & safroun and salt, & do þerto. Make a coffyn as tofore sayde & do þis þerinne, & plaunt it with smale briddes istyued & connynges, & hewe hem to smale gobettes, & bake it as tofore, & serue it forth.

- Hieatt, Constance B. and Sharon Butler. Curye on Inglish: English Culinary Manuscripts of the Fourteenth-Century (Including the Forme of Cury). New York: for The Early English Text Society by the Oxford University Press, 1985.

GODE COOKERY TRANSLATION:

Tarts of Flesh. Take pork boiled and grind it small. Take ground hard boiled eggs, and do there-to with ground cheese. Take powders and whole spices, sugar, & saffron and salt, & do there-to. Make a pie shell as said before and do this there-in, & and on top place small stewed birds and rabbit, & cut them to small pieces, & bake it as before, & serve it forth.

INGREDIENTS:

• Pork, boiled until fully cooked, and then ground. (Be sure to save the broth.)
• Hard-boiled Eggs, diced
• Cheese, ground or grated
• Powders & whole spices - salt, pepper, ginger, clove, parsley, etc. - be creative and use any period spice that you prefer.
• Sugar
• Saffron or a few drops yellow food coloring
• Salt
• Reserved broth
• One nine-inch pie shell
• Small whole chicken pieces, parboiled
• Rabbit, in pieces, parboiled

Combine first 7 ingredients in a large bowl. Add enough of the saved broth to thoroughly saturate the mixture and hold it together - it should be thick and slightly runny. Place this filling in the pie shell. Arrange cooked pieces of chicken and rabbit on top. Bake until the pastry is golden brown and the filling has set. Serve forth!