Take a pair of large fine fowls. Cut them up, wash the pieces, and
season them with pepper only. Make a good paste in the proportion of a
pound and a half of minced suet to three pounds of flour. Let there be
plenty of paste, as it is always much liked by the eaters of pot pie.
Roll out the paste not very thin, and cut most of it into long squares.
Butter the sides of a pot, and line them with paste nearly to the top.
Lay slices of cold ham at the bottom of the pot, and then the pieces
of fowl, interspersed all through with squares of paste, and potatoes
pared and quartered. Pour in a quart of water. Cover the whole with a
lid of paste, having a slit in the centre, through which the gravy will
bubble up. Boil it steadily for two hours. Half an hour before you take
it up, put in through the hole in the centre of the crust, some bits of
butter rolled in flour, to thicken the gravy. When done, put the pie on
a large dish, and pour the gravy over it.
You may intersperse it all through with cold ham.
A pot-pie may be made of ducks, rabbits, squirrels, or venison. Also of
beef-steaks. A beef-steak, or some pork-steaks (the lean only) greatly
improve a chicken pot-pie. If you use no ham, season with salt.