To Make a French Pie

Ingredients

• 2 pounds flour
• ¾ pound butter
• 2 eggs
• 3 pints veal gravy
• 3 sweetbreads
• ½ ounce truffles
• 2 calf's feet
• 1 tablespoon lemon pickle
• 1 tablespoon browning
• Cayenne pepper to taste
• coarse sea salt to taste
• a quarter of a hundred asparagus heads
• flour and butter for thickening

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

2. Mix flour and butter to form a paste and raise the walls of the pie.

3. Roll out some paste thinly for a lid and cut into shapes like vine leaves.

4. Beat the yolks of two eggs and brush the outside of the pie walls with it.

5. Lay the shapes around the walls and brush them with the egg.

6. Fill the pie with bones to keep the steam in, leaving it open on top.

7. Wash and clean a calf's head, boil for half an hour, then slice thinly.

8. In a pan, combine the calf's head, veal gravy, and sweetbreads, and simmer for one hour with truffles.

9. Add boiled and boned calf's feet cut into small pieces, lemon pickle, browning, Cayenne pepper, and salt.

10. Thicken the gravy with flour and butter, strain it, and add pickled mushrooms or fresh ones if available.

11. Place the meat into the pie, arranging the nicest pieces on top.

12. Sprinkle asparagus heads over the top and serve.