Recipe of the Week: Game Bird Pie

The following recipe for Game Bird Pie (for quail, pigeons, ground doves, quail doves, or other small game birds) is from The New Butterick Cook Book, by Flora Rose, co-head of the School of Home Economics at Cornell University. It was published in 1924. A professional scan of that 724-page out-of-copyright book will be one of the many bonus items included in the next edition of the waterproof SurvivalBlog Archive USB stick. This special 15th Anniversary Edition USB stick should be available for sale in the third week of January, 2021. The 14th Edition sold out quickly, so place a reminder in your calendar, if you want one.

Ingredients
  • 6 small game birds
  • Salt and pepper
  • 1/4 cup minced parsley
  • 1/2 chopped onion
  • 2 whole cloves
  • 1/4 pound diced salt pork
  • 2 tablespoons browned flour
  • 2 tablespoons butter or butter substitute
  • 2 cups diced potatoes
  • Rich paste for top and bottom crust\
Directions
  1. Clean the birds thoroughly.
  2. Halve them, put them into one quart of water and bring to boiling-point.
  3. Remove the scum, add salt, pepper, parsley, onion, cloves, and salt pork.
  4. Simmer until tender, carefully keeping the birds covered with water. When the birds are done, thicken the liquid with the browned flour and let the gravy come to a boil.
  5. Add the fat, remove from the fire and cool.
  6. Put the paste around the sides of a greased pudding-dish.
  7. Lay in some of the birds, then some potatoes, and repeat until the dish is full.
  8. Pour in the gravy, put on the top crust, slashed in the center, and bake until done.

Do you have a favorite recipe that would be of interest to SurvivalBlog readers? In this weekly recipe column, we place emphasis on recipes that use long term storage foods, recipes for wild game, dutch oven and slow cooker recipes, and any that use home garden produce. If you have any favorite recipes, then please send them via e-mail. Thanks!