1714—Pâté de Poulet

Line a raised-pie mould with patty paste (No. 2359, Dressing Paste (Pâte à Pâté)), taking care to leave a fine crest.

Bone a fowl weighing about four or five lbs. Set the suprêmes (each cut into three collops) to No. 168, Cooked Marinade for Venison in a glass of brandy, salt, pepper, nutmeg, and five medium-sized peeled truffles, each cut into four or five thick slices.

With what remains of the fowl’s meat, as much lean pork and veal (mixed in equal quantities) and twice as much fresh, pork fat (i.e., a quantity equal in weight to all the other meats put together), prepare a very smooth forcemeat; chopping the whole first, then pounding it and rubbing it through a sieve. Add to this forcemeat a little truffle essence; the No. 168, Cooked Marinade for Venison of the fillets; one raw egg, and the necessary seasoning, to wit: salt, pepper, and nutmeg.

Line the bottom and sides of the pie with this forcemeat; on this first layer of forcemeat lay a thin slice of bacon and thick slices of tongue, beef, or ham. Place thereon another slice of bacon, followed by a thin layer of forcemeat, a layer of truffle slices, another layer of forcemeat, the collops of fowl, another layer of forcemeat, one more layer of truffles, one more layer of forcemeat, one more layer of tongue or ham (between two thin slices of bacon); and finally cover the whole with what remains of the forcemeat and a slice of larding bacon superposed by a bay-leaf. Now close the pie with a cover of the same paste as that already used, carefully seal down the cover to the crest of the underlying paste, trim and pinch the crest, and deck this cover of paste with imitation-leaves of the same paste.

Make a slit in the top of the pie, for the escape of steam; carefully gild the cover and the crest, and bake in a moderate oven for about one and one-quarter hours. On withdrawing the pie from the oven, let it half cool, and fill it with a succulent, chicken jelly. Allow this dish to cool for at least twenty-four hours before serving.

N.B.—With this recipe as model, and by substituting another piece of poultry or game for the fowl, raised pies may be prepared from every kind of game or poultry, except water-game, which only yields mediocre results.

In the case of game pies, the forcemeat is combined with one-sixth of its weight of gratin forcemeat (No. 202, Gratin Forcemeat for Ordinary Hot, Raised Pies) and an equal quantity of fat bacon is suppressed. The chicken jelly is also replaced by a jelly prepared from the carcasses of the birds under treatment.

Dish these raised pies plainly, on napkins, and very cold.