Stargazy pie through the pastry top, appearing to gaze at the stars. The position of the fish allows the oil that is released during cooking to drain into the pie, adding a fuller flavour and ensuring the pie is moist. The celebrity chef Rick Stein suggested also poking the pilchards' tails through the pie crust to give the effect of leaping through water. In spite of the fact that the British Food Trust describes the dish as being fun as well as amusing to children, it has been listed in "Yuck! Disgusting things people eat", a lifestyle feature by the "New York
Battalia pie Dictionary, "Cocks-combs, Goose-gibbets, Ghizzards, Livers, and other Appurtenances of Fowls (1706)". It is not connected with Italian "battaglia", battle, but it was regularly confused with that meaning, and battalia pies were built with crenellated battlements around the edges, and sometimes as castles complete with towers. The 1658 cookery book "The Compleat Cook" by "W. M." gives an early recipe for battalia pie: In his 1660 cookery book "The Accomplisht Cook", Robert May gives a recipe "To make a Bisk or Batalia Pie", which instructs: John Nott's 1723 "The Cooks and Confectioners Dictionary" gives a recipe for battalia pie with fish: