Mutton Pie a L'Irlandaise

Trim a neck of mutton as if it was intended for cutlets, remove the superfluous fat; separate the neck part into thick cutlets without trimming them wastefully; divide the short ribs and scrag-end into equal sized pieces of about two inches square; highly season these with pepper and salt, place them in a stewpan with enough water to cover the meat, and set it to stew for half an hour over a rather slow file: the gravy must now be strained from the meat, freed from grease, poured again to the meat; add thereto six onions and eight potatoes, put the lid on the stewpan, and set the whole to stew gently for another half hour; at the expiration of this time, arrange the cutlets, &c, neatly round the pie-dish; lift the potatoes and onions into the centre without smashing thorn; boil down the gravy to the quatity required to fill up the pie; sprinkle a couple of dozen of oysters over the surface; cover the pie with potato-paste, egg it over, bake it for an hour, and serve a sauce-boat of gravy separately.

Note.—The potato-paste here alluded to is made as follows:—bake a dozen large potatoes, and when done, and just out of the oven, immediately rub their pulp through a clean wire sieve; put this into a stewpan with two ounces of butter, four yolks of eggs, nutmeg, pepper and salt; stir the paste over the lire until it ceases to adhere to the sides of the stewpan, and then roll it out on the slab with flour;—and remember that: inasmuch as this kind of paste possesses but little elasticity, it must be handled with care, and when rolled out to the size and in the form of the dish which has to be covered with it, the cover should be divided into two or four parts (according to the size of the pie); by this contrivance, it will be more easily adjusted on the top, by gently pressing the joints together with the flat part of the thumb; parts of the paste should be used to decorate the surface of the pie in the usual way.

Note.—This paste serves also for potato croquets.