So for dinner, my family and I tried the Mete Pies from this one website, for various reasons. One in looked delicious and sounded so. Two, I wanted have a taste of Renaissance cooking and Early Modern England cooking, because this same meal would have been eaten in my Remmington Pirate book series that I am writing. And three, it seemed easy enough, given the short notice for getting some ingredients gathered. Oh yes! And four, it WAS easy to turn it into a gluten free meal.
We modified it to be gluten free, and instead of pork we filled four of the pies with ground beef and 2 with cut up turkey burgers.
"Traditional English Meat Pies were made with pork because it was more economical. Every cottager kept a pig, and there was an ample supply of pork in the butcher shops of London." (http://www.thebrasssisters.com/pages/2009/02/hearty-english-meat-pie/)
My Version of Mete Pies (gluten free):
For the meat (which is cooked first)
Six 1/3lb Turkey Burgers OR 2lbs ground Beef
While the meat is cooking make the dough:
3 cups flour (Betty Crocker's GF All-Purpose Flour)
8 Tbsp. butter (Next time I'm going to try Earth Balance Butter to make it dairy free)
4 egg yolks (Next time, maybe try 4 egg whites instead to cut calories?)
1 tsp. salt
Dash of ground Garlic
about 3/4 cup water
Add to the cooked and cooled meat:
1/2 tsp. cloves
1/4 tsp. dried parsley
2 Tbsp. Beet sugar
Divide Dough into 6 balls. Roll out. Put in oven-safe cereal bowls. Fill with meat.
Put:
Dash of black pepper in each pie
1/2 Tbsp. butter in each pie (Next time I'm going to try Earth Balance Butter)
Fold top over the meat (some of the pies may not reach top middle, that's all right. It'll taste the same.)
Bake at 350 degrees for 50 minutes, or until golden brown.
As with being distracted in watching the last two Mad Max movies, I forgot to take pictures of the finished meal before they got devoured. But I got one!
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| From the mid 1400s |
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| Mete Pies galore! |
We modified it to be gluten free, and instead of pork we filled four of the pies with ground beef and 2 with cut up turkey burgers.
"Traditional English Meat Pies were made with pork because it was more economical. Every cottager kept a pig, and there was an ample supply of pork in the butcher shops of London." (http://www.thebrasssisters.com/pages/2009/02/hearty-english-meat-pie/)
My Version of Mete Pies (gluten free):
For the meat (which is cooked first)
Six 1/3lb Turkey Burgers OR 2lbs ground Beef
While the meat is cooking make the dough:
3 cups flour (Betty Crocker's GF All-Purpose Flour)
8 Tbsp. butter (Next time I'm going to try Earth Balance Butter to make it dairy free)
4 egg yolks (Next time, maybe try 4 egg whites instead to cut calories?)
1 tsp. salt
Dash of ground Garlic
about 3/4 cup water
Add to the cooked and cooled meat:
1/2 tsp. cloves
1/4 tsp. dried parsley
2 Tbsp. Beet sugar
Divide Dough into 6 balls. Roll out. Put in oven-safe cereal bowls. Fill with meat.
Put:
Dash of black pepper in each pie
1/2 Tbsp. butter in each pie (Next time I'm going to try Earth Balance Butter)
Fold top over the meat (some of the pies may not reach top middle, that's all right. It'll taste the same.)
Bake at 350 degrees for 50 minutes, or until golden brown.
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| Beefy Mete Pie |
Wait, I found another whole one!
THE ORIGINAL RECIPES: are as from the website (the link is below)
Mete Pie
15th c
"This simple recipe is perfect for using up leftover cooked pork. It has a flavor and aroma that is more than a bit like glazed ham."
"The original recipe called for marrow which can be hard to get at the local market. I've used butter in its place, but lard or suet should also work. If you can't find cubebs, subsitute 1 tsp. of black pepper and a pinch of orange peel."
2 lbs. pork
1/2 tsp. cloves
1/4 tsp. mace
2 tsp. cubebs [subsitute 1 tsp. of black pepper and a pinch of orange peel]
2 Tbsp. sugar
4 Tbsp. butter
double recipe for Short Paest for Tarts
"Boil or slow-cook the pork until tender. Allow to cool and then chop into small pieces. Add spices and sugar, put into pie crust, dot with butter, cover with a top crust, and bake at 350°F until golden brown - about 30 minutes. Serve hot."
"Source [Two Fifteenth-Century Cookery-Books, T. Austin (ed.)]: xxxiij - A bake Mete Ryalle. Take and make litel cofyns, and take Chykonys y-sothe; other Porke y-sothe, and smale y-hackyd; other of hem bothe: take Clowys, Maces, Quybibes, and hakke with-alle, and melle yt with cromyd Marow, and lay on Sugre y-now; than ley it on the cofynne, and in the myddel lay a gobet of marow, and Sugre round a-bowte y-now, and lat bake; and this is for soperys."
http://medievalcookery.com/recipes/meteryalle.html
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Short Paest for Tarts aka Pie Crust
16th c
"Most of the pie crust recipes from 15th century are tacked on to the end of the recipe for some kind of pie filling. They're usually very simple mixtures of flour and water, and often don't call for any fat. This 16th century recipe is one of the earliest that is strictly for making short crust pastry. The addition of eggs and saffron give it a wonderful flavor."
1 1/2 cups flour
4 Tbsp. butter
2 egg yolks
1/2 tsp. salt
pinch saffron
about 3/8 cup water
"Mix flour, salt, and saffron together in a large bowl. Cut or rub the butter and eggs into the flour mixture until it forms fine crumbs. Add water a little at a time until it just sticks together - too much water will make the dough too soft and sticky. Cover with a towel and allow to rest for 30 minutes. Roll out on a well floured surface."
"Source [A Proper New Booke of Cookery, A. Veale]: To make short paest for tarte. Take fyne floure and a cursey of fayre water and a dysche of swete butter and a lyttel saffron, and the yolckes of two egges and make it thynne and as tender as ye maye."
http://www.medievalcookery.com/recipes/shortpaest.html
Happy Living!
P.S. Here is another great source of inspiration for these famous Mete Pies of old!
http://haandkraft.blogspot.com/2009/10/medieval-pies.html
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