Common Suet-Crust for Pies

Instructions

1. In many families this is preferred, both for pies and tarts, to crust made with butter, as being much more wholesome; but it should never be served unless especially ordered, as it is to some persons peculiarly distasteful.
2. Chop the suet extremely small, and add from six to eight ounces of it to a pound of flour, with a few grains of salt.
3. Mix these with cold water into a firm paste, and work it very smooth.
4. Some cooks beat it with a paste-roller until the suet is perfectly blended with flour; but the crust is lighter without this.
5. In exceedingly sultry weather the suet, not being firm enough to chop, may be sliced as thin as possible, and well beaten into the paste after it is worked up.
6. Proportions: Flour, 2 lbs.; beef or veal kidney-suet, 12 to 16 oz.; salt (for fruit-pies), 1/4 teaspoonful, for meat-pies, 1 teaspoonful.