Give "em a recipe

   My youngest daughter says I am getting a bit too political and to "give 'em a recipe !"
So I stuck my bottom lip out and stamped my foot because I have been enjoying the discussions, then Sol asked for my game pie recipe and I thought "Oh alright then"
 It's rather difficult to give recipe for this as it rather depends on what game I have collected, or more usually been given.
It is not unusual for me to come home from shopping to find half a dozen pigeon  on my door step. My godson often comes across a pheasant or two when clearing and cutting wood for people and last week my YD's next door neighbour gave her a couple of grouse as "your mother might like these" All this bounty I process by just cutting out the breasts and legs as I rarely have the time or inclination to pluck the little critters. I label these bits of meat and freeze them. I always have rabbit in the freezer  and the occasional cockerel and by Christmas I will have the makings of a game pie. As you all probably know all those meats are quite dry so I always add some belly pork and some bacon if I have it.
 Method
Turn the oven on to 200 degrees
Rough mince or finely chop the meats , weighing about a pound, and place into a bowl. Add salt and pepper, a sprinkle of dried thyme and a scant teaspoon of mace or nutmeg if you haven't got mace. Look at the mixture and gauge what size tin you will need ( I quite like to use a shallower tin than that which I use for pork pie)
Some people add Allspice, juniper berries or onion too, it's up to you really.
Now make the pastry
This a a hot water crust pastry, such as for pork pies (sorry if I'm insulting your intelligence but not everybody might know!) Shortcrust or flakey pastry would be cooked before this filling.
You will need
I lb Plain Flour
2 teaspoons salt
4 ounces Lard
Third of a pint of water
one egg
Put the flour and salt into a bowl
Melt the lard and water and bring to the boil. Pour immediately into the flour mixture. Mix this as quickly as you can. It should form a sort of paste ball. Working as quickly as possible, turn this onto a floured board and  knead until really smooth. take care the dough is hot! and needs to be kept as warm as possible or it becomes less pliable.. Put a quarter aside for the top of the pie(if it is a to be a deep pie or one third if it is to be a shallow one) keeping it warm. Mould the rest of the pastry into the tin, try to make the sides and bottom of equal thickness. Now add the filling, pressing it down into the pastry case. Roll out the smaller piece of pastry to cover the pie, pinching the edges together, you can do a fluted edge with scissors and add some pastry leaves to decorate if you want (not compulsory). Make a hole in the middle of the pie and brush the pie with egg.
Place in the hot oven and cook for 20 minutes. Turn the oven down to 150o and cook for a further hour and a half.
If this were a pork pie I would add the jelly here, but I never do with a game pie.
Allow to cool before removing from the tin.
Hope this has all made sense. If not just comment and I will explain further.

Tomorrow my husband carries out his first Santa appointment of 2014. The narrow boat owned by The Friends of  Cromford Canal will make three trips on the canal, full of children. The first trip is at 11 o'clock. His "Reds" are hung up and he is raring to go (not really, he's not in the swing yet so he is a little nervous) He'll be back to his Ho Ho Ho self after a few minutes. he will repeat these three trips over the next three Sundays.Phew! I shall go along as his helper and chaperone.

All for now
Thanks to those who commented on my last post
Gillx