Delicious Savory Onion Pie

Today’s recipe is a wonderful savory onion pie from “The Little Primitive Cookery” cookbook. This cookbook is a compilation of 18^th century recipes that this particular author put together for people of lesser means. This onion pie was probably a substitute for a meat pie, because it is a very savory pie. You’ll also find this recipe in Hanna Glass’s cookbook and some other 18^th century English cookbooks as well, so it’s a really interesting, fun recipe.

• Potatoes
• Apples
• Onions
• Boiled Eggs
• Salt
• 1-2 tsps. ground Pepper
• Mace
• ½ tsp. Nutmeg
• Short Crust
• Butter
• 2-3 tsps. Water

If you look at the original recipe, it says you’re going to end up using about a pound of potatoes, a pound of apples, a pound of onions, and a pound of eggs. That means the whole pie would weigh more than 4 pounds. That’s a huge pie, at least in the recipe. Our pie plate is much smaller, so we cut the recipe down quite a bit. In the end, you simply want to make sure you use about the same amount of potatoes, apples, onions, and boiled eggs so that you don’t have too much of one over the others. You want to fill your pie pan up to be sort of heaping but it will cook down a little bit.

To prepare your ingredients, you need to pare up the potatoes.

You want to pare them up fairly thinly so that you have nice thin slices. Next, you’ll need maybe two or three apples, just like the potatoes.

First pare and core them, then slice them nice and thin. Next up, onions, I mean this is an onion pie, right?

Again, about the same quantity, so if your onions are a little bit smaller, you might need 3 or 4, and you’ll want to, of course, take the outer layer off and slice them up nice and thin. Again, probably about a 1/8^th of an inch, maybe ¼ inch maximum. Our last main ingredient is the boiled eggs.

It’s best to boil these the night before so they are cool. Let’s peel them up, and then slice them. If they’re fighting you, it’s alright. Even crumbled up, they’re going to work just fine, again, about the same amount.

Now let’s put together a quick spice mix that we’ll need as we’re assembling this.

First we have some salt, maybe a teaspoon or two, ground pepper. We want some mace in this, and of course we need half a teaspoon of nutmeg. Now we’re ready to assemble this.

You’ll need to make sure to have a pie crust ready. If you are interested in our pie crust you can check out this episode we did back in the third season.

Assembling this pie is really simple.

The recipe calls for just a couple little chunks of butter in the bottom and now let’s put a layer of potatoes in the very bottom of our pie. The recipe also calls for, as you’re putting these stages together, to put in a little bit of spices in each layer. Now we’re going to go with some apples and again with just a little bit of seasoning.

Now we’re going to come in with some onion on top then some of the egg. Keep going with the layers until your pie is full.

We’re going to finish this pie up by placing some chunks of butter on top and 2 or 3 teaspoons of water.

We’re sort of steaming the ingredients in this pie. Let’s put this top crust on pinch together the edges well so it’s connected to the bottom crust. Finally, put 3 little slices in the top so this vents a little bit.

We don’t want it to bulge up with the steam pressure on the inside.

It’s ready to go in the oven. If you’re doing this in a standard oven in a modern kitchen, I would set the oven at about 350 degrees and this guy’s going to take at least 45 minutes, probably more like an hour to bake.

This is a great full meal pie. It’s a wonderful main dish. This is such an inexpensive, quick, and easy pie to make up. It only takes an hour or so to bake and the flavors are amazing. You’ll love it, the kids will like it; even a little bit of mushroom ketchup on top of this will set it off perfectly.

Transcript of Video:

Today’s recipe is a wonderful savory onion pie. Thanks for joining us today on 18^th Century Cooking with Jas Townsend and Son.

So, today’s recipe comes from “The Little Primitive Cookery” cookbook. This cookbook is sort of a compilation of 18^th century recipes that this particular 18^th century author put together for people of lesser means and this onion pie is probably sort of a substitute for a meat pie. It’s a savory pie. You’ll find this recipe in Hanna Glass’s cookbook and in some other 18^th century English cookbooks, so it’s a really interesting, fun recipe. Let’s get started.

This recipe is very simple. We need an equal quantity of potatoes, apples, onions and boiled eggs sliced up, so let’s get started. I’m going to pare up some potatoes here. You want to pare them up fairly thinly so that you have nice thin slices and then we can move on to some apples. You’ll need, again, maybe two or three apples, just like the potatoes. First we’re going to pare them and then core them, and now slice them nice and thin. Next up, onions, I mean this is an onion pie right? Again, about the same quantity, so if your onions are a little bit smaller, you might need 3 or 4, and you’ll want to, of course, take the outer layer off of these and slice them up nice and thin. Again, probably about an 1/8^th of an inch, maybe ¼ inch max. And our last main ingredient here, the boiled eggs. I boiled these up last night. Let’s peel them up, and now I’m going to kind of slice them. They’re fighting me, but even crumbled up, they’re going to work just fine, again, about the same amount.

Now let’s put together a quick spice mix that we’ll need as we’re assembling this. First we have some salt, maybe a teaspoon or two, ground pepper. We want some mace in this, so I’ve got some mace here, and of course we need in every recipe, nutmeg, half a teaspoon of nutmeg total, and now I’m just going to stir these up. Now we’re ready to assemble this. We have all the ingredients set up and I’ve already got a short crust put into this red ware pie pan. You’ll need to make sure to have a pie crust ready. If you are interested in this pie crust you can go and check out the episode we did, I think back in the third season. I’ll put a link down in the description section.

Let’s assemble this pie. It’s really simple. First we’re going to start off with a little bit of butter in the bottom. The recipe calls for just a couple little chunks here in the bottom and now let’s put a layer of potatoes in the very bottom of our pie. The recipe also calls for, as you’re putting these stages together, to put in a little bit of spices in each layer. Now we’re going to go with some apple here, again with just a little bit of seasoning. That’s good, now we’re going to come in with some onion on top here and now let’s put in some of the egg. Now the instructions say to keep going with the layers. Now depending on how thick your pie is, you may not have enough room for another layer but I’m going to do a thin layer.

Now if you look at this recipe here, toward the end it says you’re going to end up using about a pound of potatoes, a pound of apples, a pound of onions, and a pound of eggs. That means this whole pie is going to weigh more than 4 pounds. It’s a huge pie, at least in the recipe. This pie in this pie plate is much smaller, so you won’t need a full pound. Obviously this is going to fill this pie right up though. It’s going to be sort of heaping, but that’s okay, it’s going to cook down a little bit.

We’re going to finish this pie up now by placing some chunks of butter up on top and a little bit of water too. Maybe 2 or 3 teaspoons, it calls for adding a little bit of water in here, we’re sort of steaming the ingredients in this pie, and let’s put this top crust on and let’s pinch this together and get this connected so it’s connected to the bottom crust. Now that we finished that up, we can just put 3 little slices in the top so this vents a little bit. We don’t want it to sort of bulge up with the steam pressure on the inside.

And here’s our assembled pie. It’s ready to go in the oven. If you’re doing this in a standard oven in a modern kitchen, I would set the oven at about 350 degrees and this guy’s going to take at least 45 minutes, probably more like an hour to bake.

Wow, this pie smells great. Let’s cut into it and see what it looks like.

Mmm, wow.

That is really, really good. It’s got a wonderful mix of flavors and spices and it’s so wonderful and savory and moist still. I mean with all that butter in there, you know it’s good. This is a great kind of full meal pie, you wouldn’t need to have a meat course if you had a pie like this that you were serving with maybe with just one little side dish or something. It’s a wonderful main dish. If you get a chance at all, and this is such an inexpensive quick and easy pie to make up, it only takes an hour or so to bake and the flavors are amazing, so definitely give this one a try. You’ll love it, the kids will like it, even a little bit of mushroom ketchup on top of this will set it off perfectly.

I want to thank you so much for joining me today as we come along and savor the flavors and the aromas of the 18^th century.

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