Medieval cookbooks are full of recipes for pies, meat pies fish pies, fruit pies and vegetable pies. Rarely, however is there a recipe for the crust. Basic pie dough being one of those items every decent cook already knew, or perhaps the pastry cook provided it.  A few recipes or partial recipes are available this one comes from The Cookbook of Sabina Welserin and works quite fine for any pie. This quantity will make enough for a two crust 9-10 inch pie with some generous scraps left over.

• 2 cups flour

• 1/2 teaspoon salt

• 2 eggs beaten

• 1/2 cup rendered lard or suet. (lamb, goat or chicken fat can be substituted)

• 1/4 cup water

• additional flour if needed and to roll

Combine water and lard in a saucepan and heat until all the fat is melted. Set aside and let cool to room temperature or a bit above. Should not be too hot to handle but fat should remain liquid..

Mix flour and salt,  mound onto a clean surface (or inside a big bowl works too) Make a well in the middle and pour in the beaten eggs, blend the eggs into the flour as evenly as possible. Pour melted fat and water combo into the mixture and mix well, knead to a smooth consistency.  This will be a fairly sticky dough at this stage.  Chill.

Use as any pastry dough. This makes a nice sturdy pastry shell, as it says for shaped pies, but is still tender.

61 To make a pastry dough for all shaped pies

Take flour, the best that you can get, about two handfuls, depending on how large or small you would have the pie. Put it on the table and with a knife stir in two eggs and a little salt. Put water in a small pan and a piece of fat the size of two good eggs, let it all dissolve together and boil. Afterwards pour it on the flour on the table and make a strong dough and work it well, however you feel is right. If it is summer, one must take meat broth instead of water and in the place of the fat the skimmings from the broth. When the dough is kneaded, then make of it a round ball and draw it out well on the sides with the fingers or with a rolling pin, so that in the middle a raised area remains, then let it chill in the cold. Afterwards shape the dough as I have pointed out to you. Also reserve dough for the cover and roll it out into a cover and take water and spread it over the top of the cover and the top of the formed pastry shell and join it together well with the fingers. Leave a small hole. And see that it is pressed together well, so that it does not come open. Blow in the small hole which you have left, then the cover will lift itself up. Then quickly press the hole closed. Afterwards put it in the oven. Sprinkle flour in the dish beforehand. Take care that the oven is properly heated, then it will be a pretty pastry. The dough for all shaped pastries is made in this manner.

Original Recipe taken from Valoise Armstrong's Translation of The Cookbook Of Sabina Welserin, 1553 which can be accessed at http://www.daviddfriedman.com/Medieval/Cookbooks/Sabrina_Welserin.html

Pie dough for a Lenten dish (no eggs, dairy or animal fats)

This is my personal recipe which we sometimes use as an alternative, especially as one of our guild cooks has a severe allergy to eggs.

These are the basic proportions, obviously for a very small pie but multiply it upward to the amount needed.

3/4 cup of flour

pinch of salt

2 tablespoons olive oil

Water to make dough

Combine salt, flour and oil. Mix in water to make a dough. Let rest 1/2 hour before rolling out.

Another dough we sometimes use, especially for small fried or boiled pies

Dumpling/noodle dough

Either of the doughs on this page will work for these pies

• Chard Pie
• Cheese and Bacon Pastries
• Cumin Chicken Pie
• Doucettes
• Figgy Piggy Pie
• Genovese Tart
• Ofella
• Almond Tarts
• Raison Pie
• Simple Salmon Pie

Other recipes from this manuscript

• Apple Puffs
• Apple Pillows
• Cherry Puffs
• Dutch Oven Custard
• Puffed Apples
• Rice Buns