Time Travel Cooking: 1796 Minced Pie of Beef

As a food historian I’ve often contemplated cooking up historical recipes but haven’t ever done much to fulfill that desire. So one of my intentions for this summer is to try a new (really old?) recipe at least once a week.

I decided to start off with a recipe from what is regarded as America’s first cookbook. I’ve used Amelia Simmon’s American Cookery (1796) as a historical source before, but I’ve never actually worked with any of the recipes. I’ve also never made a meat pie before, so it seemed like the perfect one to start with.

 

Here’s the original recipe:

Four pounds of beef? Six pounds of apples? Are you kidding me, early America?

Obviously I converted the recipe. I also omitted the two pounds of sugar. And suet (beef fat)? Nope--subbed that out with bacon. I also added onions, just because it seemed like a reasonable thing to do.

Here’s the ingredient list I ended up with:

1 lb. ground beef
2 apples, chopped
¼ lb. bacon
1 cup red wine
½ cup raisins
½ yellow onion, chopped
cinnamon to taste
salt to taste

I would have kept in the mace and nutmeg but unfortunately didn’t have those spices on hand.

First I set the oven to 350º while I prepared the dough and filling.

I cut the bacon into small pieces and cooked it up on the stovetop with the onions. Next I added the ground beef. After the beef was mostly browned, I tossed in the apples, raisins, cinnamon, salt, and wine.

 

I didn’t cook it on the stovetop for too long since it would keep cooking in the oven. Once I finished the filling I added it to the piecrust WHICH I MADE MYSELF. 

For the piecrust, I used this simple recipe from Crazy for Crust. Now, I generally avoid baking but it didn’t seem right to purchase a pre-made crust when using a 1796 recipe. I did, however, use a food processor to make the dough. We all have our limits.

It was actually incredibly easy to make the dough—just flour, butter, and water. And there’s something very satisfying about working with dough. It also tasted so much better than any store-bought crust I’ve used. It seems I may slowly be converted to the baking realm.

After glazing the top crust with an egg wash of yolk and water, I popped it in the oven and let it cook for about 45 minutes until it was a beautiful golden brown.

This pie. Guys. Seriously. It’s so amazing and satisfying. It’s not entirely “historical” since I altered the recipe. But hey, I like to play fast and loose with the past, especially if it means getting to eat something as delicious as this updated version of a 1796 meat pie. 

Semiotics of the Kitchen

"I was concerned with something like the notion of 'language speaking the subject,' and with the transformation of the woman herself into a sign in a system of signs that represent a system of food production, a system of harnessed subjectivity." – Martha Rosler

Quick Cooked in Dragonfire!

Pumpkin Ravioli Awesomeness

For dinner tonight I made pumpkin ravioli tossed with caramelized onions, minced garlic, baby spinach, olive oil and topped with goat cheese and crushed red pepper flakes.

Not too shabby. Not too shabby, indeed.

Biscuits 'n Gravy

What's better than waking up to a breakfast of fresh biscuits, sausage gravy, and poached eggs? Not a lot. Especially when you wake up to good friends who are ready to assist you in cooking such a tasty meal!

While I got to work on the sausage gravy, my friend Molly prepared the biscuits using a recipe from the Betty Crocker Cookbook. With the oven preheating to 450° she mixed together:

2 cups of flour
1 tablespoon of sugar
3 teaspoons of baking powder
1 teaspoon of salt

Next she cut a 1/2 cup of shortening into the flour mixture by pulling two knives through the ingredients in opposite directions. Once the mixture turned into small crumbs she stirred in 3/4 cup of milk.

Then the dough was placed on a floured surface and kneaded about ten times, rolled flat until 1/2 inch thick, and cut into circles using a water glass.

To finish, they were baked in the oven on an ungreased cookie sheet for ten minutes.

I started to make the sausage gravy by browning some breakfast sausage. When it was cooked through I removed the sausage and left the grease in the pan. Next I added a couple of tablespoons of flour to the grease and mixed it together for a few minutes until it was brown. Then I poured in a cup of milk and stirred it together until thick. After that I added the cooked sausage back into the gravy and seasoned it with salt and pepper. Simple yet delicious.

After the sausage gravy was good to go and the biscuits were almost done baking I poached some eggs. I filled a large pot with about an inch of water and a splash of white wine vinegar and set it to medium heat. When the water was just starting to bubble I would crack an egg into a dish then release the raw egg from the dish right onto the surface of the water, and used a wooden spoon to gently nudge the whites over the top of the yolk. This helps to keep the egg together as it poaches. After about four minutes I removed each egg using a slotted spoon and placed them onto the sausage-gravy covered biscuits, which we had cut in half.

The breakfast was absolutely amazing. It's a little heavy for an early-morning breakfast, but I guarantee that you will be full for hours. Enjoy! 

A Rooklicious Thanksgiving Feast

This year's Thanksgiving was one of the best. It's truly one of my favorite holidays--good food, warm fires, conversation and laughter, and eating, eating, eating. I'm still full from Thursday.

Seriously.

This year we started off in the afternoon with bowls of mulligatawny soup, meat, cheese, crackers, shrimp, and veggies as the fragrance of roast turkey and mulled wine filled the air.

When dinner was served we indulged in fennel salad, cranberry sauce with pears and oranges, ambrosia, rosemary and garlic smanging mashed potatoes, brussels sprouts with walnuts and garlic, and stuffing muffins.  

The turkey was one of my best yet--I think I've really perfected my technique. The skin of the turkey was golden and crispy after being coated in butter, sage, rosemary, and thyme (cue singing now), and the flavors of apples, onions, garlic, celery, and carrots flavored the turkey from the inside out. I also made a killer gravy from the buttery drippings to accompany the turkey.

And of course no meal is complete without a nice glass of wine. Hope everyone had a fantastic Thanksgiving this year. Cheers!

Maine Memories...

Don't get me wrong, the grilled cheese sandwich I devoured for dinner before heading back to the library for mass amounts of lecture writing and reading for seminars was very good. I make a damn tasty grilled cheese sandwich. But the solitary cooking of the sandwich, not to mention its lack of complexity and the quickness in which it was eaten, has got me reminiscing about the last family dinner I had in Portland with my Maine family--potatoes au gratin, empanadas stuffed with fresh Maine lobster, fish tacos made with local fish, avocado-mango dip, and grilled Maine shrimp complete with a specialty tequila cocktail to accompany the fantastic meal. A grilled cheese simply cannot compare to the company of friends and family and the leisurely cooking and consumption of delicious food on a quiet Sunday evening.  

While I can't be in Maine tonight, at least these photos captured some of the culinary joy of that meal...

Lobster Empanadas     

Tequila-Marinated Grilled Maine Shrimp

Tequila Cocktail with Freshly Squeezed Juices, Ginger Simple Syrup, and St. Germaine's Elderflower Liqueur 

Potatoes Au Gratin

Look at that burbling...

Fish Tacos

Mango-Avocado Dip