Line the bottom and sides of a pot with a good rich paste, reserving
enough for a top crust and for the square bits to be scattered through
the pie. Butter the pot very lavishly, or your pastry will stick to it
and burn. Cut up a fine large fowl, and half a pound of corned ham or
salt pork. Put in a layer of the latter, pepper it, and cover with
pieces of the chicken, and this with the paste dumplings or squares.
If you use potatoes, parboil them before putting them into the pie,
as the first water in which they are boiled is rank and unwholesome.
The potatoes should be sliced and laid next the pastry squares; then
another layer of pork, and so on until your chicken is used up. Cover
with pastry rolled out quite thick, and slit this in the middle. Heat
very slowly, and boil two hours. Turn into a large dish, the lower
crust on top, and the gravy about it.
This is the old-fashioned pot-pie, dear to the memory of men who were
school-boys thirty and forty years ago. If you are not experienced in
such manufactures, you had better omit the lower crust; and, having
browned the upper, by putting a hot pot-lid or stove-cover on top of
the pot for some minutes, remove dexterously without breaking. Pour out
the chicken into a dish, and set the crust above it.
Veal, beef-steak, lamb (not mutton), hares, &c., may be substituted for
the chicken. The pork will salt it sufficiently.