Take an ordinary pie-dish, such as used for steak pie. Have one or two large Spanish onions half-cooked, remove the centres, and put in pie- dish. This will serve both to keep up the paste and to hold gravy. Fill up the dish with partially stewed German lentils, and either sliced tomatoes or pieces of carrot and turnip first fried in a little butter. There should also be plenty of chopped onions put in the bottom of the dish, which should be buttered. Fill nearly up with well-seasoned stock, "Extract," gravy, or water, cover with rough puff paste, and bake for an hour or longer, according to size. There should be a hole in top of pastry, covered with an ornament, which could be lifted off, and some more gravy put in with a funnel. Serve very hot. If to be used cold, a little soaked tapioca should be cooked with it, or some vegetable gelatine might be dissolved in the gravy. By way of variety, a few force-meat balls may be put in; also mushrooms when in season.
Source:
Reform Cookery Book (4th edition)