A veal & parsley pie from Maria Eliza Rundell

A veal and parsley pie from Maria Eliza Rundell is one of the recipes from her New System of Domestic Cookery that Anne Willan selected to include in Women in the Kitchen.

• suet pastry (recommended), short crust pastry or a sheet of thawed frozen puff pastry (see the Notes)
• a bunch of stemmed curly parsley (at least ½ lb)
• butter for smearing a piepan
• 1 lb ‘red’ (not milk fed but free range) boneless stewing veal cut into chunks (see the Notes)
• about 1 teaspoon salt
• generous grind of black pepper
• ¾ cup whole milk
• scant cup heavy cream

Preheat the oven to 400°.

1. Chill the dough (but not if using puff pastry) for 15 minutes before you want to top the pie.
2. Bring a pot of salted water to a boil, throw in the parsley leaf and then strain off the water from the parsley.
3. Ruthlessly dry the parley by squeezing it through as many wraps of paper towel as required, then chop it but not too fine.
4. Smear your piepan with butter and top its floor evenly with a layer of parsely.
5. Toss the veal with salt and pepper, then place a layer of the chunks over the parsley followed and repeat the process until you run out of the meat and parsley.
6. Cover the pie with the pastry, glaze it with a little of the cream and cut a hole in the center or, better, embed a piebird to vent the pie so the pastry does not become soggy.
7. Bake the pie until the pastry browns, usually in about 15-20 minutes.
8. Reduce the heat to 350° and bake for about another hour.
9. Scald the remaining cream.
10. Shove a turkey baster into the hole at the center of the pastry (or next to the pie bird) and remove as much of the milk as you can, squirting it through a strainer into a bowl.
11. Jam any parsley that got caught with the milk back through the center hole, then pour through the cream.
12. Serve the pie warm.

Notes:

-The bfia recipes for both suet and shortcrust pastry appear in our recipes.

-Willan’s addition of ginger and nutmeg along with pepper may, as she maintains, be “very English,” but for this pie also is misplaced. Parsley may be relatively mild but it is bright and is, after all, an herb that would be sidelined by the ginger and nutmeg. Parsley is the star of this show and deserves its turn.