Pork and Small Birds (Forme of Cury, redaction)

 

171. Tartee. Take pork ysode; hewe it & bray it. Do þerto ayren, raisouns corauns, sugur and powdour of gynger, powdour douce, and smale briddes þeramong, & white grece. Take prunes, safroun, & salt; and make a crust in a trap, & do þe fars þerin; and bake it wel & serue it forth.

– Hieatt, Constance B. and Sharon Butler. Curye on Inglish: English Culinary Manuscripts of the Fourteenth-Century (Including the Forme of Cury)

Translation:

Take boiled pork, chop it and pound it in a mortor and pestle until finely ground. Add eggs, raisins, currants, sugar and ground ginger, sweet spices and small birds amongst this and white grease (lard, beef drippings). Take prunes, saffron and salt, and make a pastry in a ceramic dish and put the mix in the pie dish and bake it well and serve it forth.

 

• 1 kg of pickled pork
• 500g of chicken breast
• handful each of raisins, currants, prunes
• 8 eggs
• 30g of sugar
• 1/4 tsp of ginger, cinnamon, clove, nutmeg
• 50g of lard
• pastry for 3 x 9 inch pies

Put pickled pork in a pot and cover with cold water. Bring to a boil, and then gently simmer for one hour.

Mince in food processor.

In a mixing bowl, mix the pork and all other ingrediants except the chicken, put it in a pie case over the pastry.

Thinly slice the chicken – about 1cm slices. Put in pie with mix, squidging it down slightly in the mix.

Bake in the oven for 45 minutes at 180 celsius.

While I was experimenting with the pie, I looked at the wording and in particular the line which says Take prunes, safroun, & salt; and make a crust in a trap, & do þe fars þerin. So to me, that says the prunes go in the pastry. I’m not saying that I’m a petty petty person, but I definitely am. Here’s a picture of this same pie, where the prunes were chopped up and put in the pastry instead of inside the case. It actually didn’t turn out half bad.