A dripping crust is a traditional British recipe, based on Hannah Glasse's recipe of 1747, for a classic pastry made from a clarified dripping and flour mix that's bound with water and which is typically used for meat-based pies. The full recipe is presented here and I hope you enjoy this classic British version of: A good crust.
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This is a traditional British recipe redacted from Hannah Glasse's 1747 volume The Aft of Cookery Made Plain and Easy, the classic Georgian cookbook.
A dripping cruſt.
TAKE a pound and half of beef-dripping, boil it in water, ſtrain it, then let it ſtand to be cold, and take off the hard fat : ſcrape it, boil it ſo four or five times ; then work it well up into three pounds of flour, as fine as you can, and make it up into paſte with cold water. It makes a very fine cruſt.
Modern Redaction
Ingredients:
340g beef dripping
675g plain flour
cold water, to bind
Method:
Place the dripping in a pan with 300ml water. Bring to a boil and cook until the dripping has melted then take off the heat and pass through a fine-meshed sieve into a heat-proof bowl. Discard any solids and set the bowl aside for the fat to cool and set.
Remove the hard fat from the surface of the bowl, place in a saucepan with 300ml water then bring to a boil and cook until the fat has melted. Repeat this boiling and cooling process three times, until the fat is clear.
On the final boil take off the solid fat, chop finely then rub into the flour with your fingertips until the mixture resembles fine crumbs. Now work in just enough cold water to bring the mixture together as a dough.
Turn the dough out onto a floured work surface and roll out quite thin. Use as a base for pies.
