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Squirrel Pie

A savory pie made with squirrel meat, salt pork, water, seasoning, and pie crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Squirrel Pie

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Clean the squirrels and cut them into small pieces.

  2. Wipe them with a damp cloth.

Cook the filling

  1. Place the squirrels in a stewpan with the salt pork and enough water to nearly cover them.

  2. Cook until the squirrels are half done.

  3. Season well.

  4. Thicken the gravy.

Assemble and bake

  1. Pour the mixture into a deep dish.

  2. Cover with pie crust.

  3. Bake at 400°F (200°C) for thirty minutes.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

What each ingredient does

Squirrels
Provide the main meat that forms the body of the pie filling.
Salt pork
Adds fat and savoury flavour to the meat and the gravy as it cooks.
Pie crust
Encloses the filling and browns in the oven as a sealed top.

The step that matters

Cook until the squirrels are half done. Meat that is only partly cooked before baking may stay tough or underdone, since the oven time is short and the filling cooks further in the crust. Stopping at the right point keeps the meat tender and the gravy properly thickened.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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