Medieval/Tudor Recipe Mince Pie

Do you want to have a medievally good time? Perhaps entice your friends with some Tudor chow? Remember, do NOT throw the bones over your shoulder onto the floor. No one really did that. I’m afraid the 1930s movie THE PRIVATE LIFE OF HENRY VIII with Charles Laughton’s Oscar-winning portrayal is responsible for that thinking. And please don’t watch it with the idea that anything in it is very historical. Hysterical, perhaps, but not historical.

A few years ago I went in search of an English medieval mince pie recipe. It seems there is no definitive recipe for this. I imagine that with most recipes of this kind, it involved whatever the cook had on hand. And just as you probably wouldn’t have a meatloaf recipe today in a book, back then, it was silly to write down a minced pie recipe since everyone knew how to make it.

But the original medieval/Tudor recipes included meat–actual minced meat. In fact, most of their cookery involved meat. Even stuffing. Was this pie a side dish, a main course or was it dessert–or all three? The medieval pallet was a bit more attuned to different spices with their meat. Spices we usually associate with sweet pie rather than savory. Just think Moroccan cooking, and how they use cinnamon and other spices with their meat. That’s how medieval and Tudor people ate it.

And it’s certainly hearty. I took a combination of recipes and ingredients from multiple sources. I hope you like the result. (This is my pie above)

 

Medieval Mince Pie

1 lb boiled beef, lean, and pulled apart into fine strings (I made the mistake of not boiling it long enough, so that my beef was chunky. This will take a few hours, or all day in a crock pot.)

4 tart green apples, seeded and cut into bite-sized cubes

1/4 lb or more suet (Suet is fat from mutton. You could use lamb fat if you can get a leg, but I just asked my butcher for 1/4 lb of beef fat, which he gave me for free. Cut it into small pieces and throw them in your food processor. Process to fine granules.)

1 box seedless raisins

1 box of currants

1-2 citrons or lemons, cut up into very small pieces

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/4 cup molasses

1/2 cup cider

pinch of salt  

black pepper

1-2 Tb mace

1-2 Tb allspice

1-2 Tb nutmeg

1-2 Tb cloves

4 Tb cinnamon

1/2 cup Brandy

1/2 cup Madeira or Marsala wine

In a big pot or Dutch oven, cook the beef fat until rendered. Mix all other ingredients together except for brandy and wine and pour into pot with crispy and rendered fat and cook down. After it’s cooked down for a bit, let it cool and then add brandy and wine.

In the meantime, prepare a good lard pastry dough (I put mine in a Wilton 10 x 3 pan or spring form pan). Place the dough in the bottom, pour in the cooled minced meat, and cover with more pastry. I folded the edges down till they were about halfway down in the pan, and crimped the edges. I cut some fancy swirls on top with a very sharp knife and gave it an egg and milk wash. Bake it at 350 for 45 minutes. After it cools for a bit on a rack, I was able to turn it out of the pan to put it on a presentation plate. Good cold or warm. Serves a small army.

Now, you would more likely make this into lots of little pies that you could store in a cool dry place for a few days, but it makes quite the presentation this way, too.