Historical Food Fortnightly 2016, Challenge No. 13: Pies!

The Challenge:
13. Pies (June 17 - June 30) Make a pie! Meat, fruit, sweet or savory; traditional pies, hand pies, standing pies, or galottes - get creative, but make sure it’s documented!

Intro
If the fellow foodies will remember, I've set an additional challenge to interpret dishes that are listed as served at the 80th Anniversary Dinner of the Friendly Sons of St. Patrick. None of the dishes on the menu were pies. Quite the scandal, in my opinion because we all like pie. I wanted to do a different kind of pie and fish pie was certainly that. I also took the opportunity to use a favorite cookbook from further to the south.

The Recipe:
From:The Virginia Housewife; Or, Methodical Cook by Mary Randolf, 1838
Cod Fish Pie.
Soak the fish, boil it and take off the skin, pick the meat from the bones, and mince it very fine; take double the quantity of your fish, of stale bread grated; pour over it as much new milk, boiling hot, as will wet it completely, add minced parsley, nutmeg, pepper, and made mustard, with as much melted butter as will make it sufficiently rich; the quantity must be determined by that of the other ingredients--beat these together very well, add the minced fish, mix it all, cover the bottom of the dish with good paste, pour the fish in, put on a lid and bake it.


The Date/Year and Region: 
Early to Mid 19th century Mid-Atlantic Unites States

How Did You Make It:
Pastry Crust
2 portions fish
1.5 cups bread crumbs
1 cup Boiling Milk
Parsley
Nutmeg
Pepper
Mustard
4 Tablespoons Butter

Make a top and bottom pastry crust.

Set the milk to boil.

Mince the fish.

Combine bread crumbs, parsley, nutmeg, pepper, and mustard together.

Melt the butter and combine with mixture.
Add the fish to mixture.

Pour into pastry crust, top, and bake. (I even attempted a pastry fish for decoration.)
375* for 30 minutes

Time to Complete: 
45 minutes or so

Total Cost: 
About $5.00 for the fish and $3.00 for butter, but the rest were pantry staples in small quantities.

How Successful Was It: 
Well, I liked it. I could have used less breadcrumbs and more milk in the filling, but it was certainly tasty.

How Accurate Was It: 
I used packaged cod fish pieces and breadcrumbs instead of fresh, and naturally a modern oven, but otherwise as the recipe directed. I feel the accuracy level is fairly high on this one. :-)