Little Tiny Pies

Two things I wanted to do once I was back on my feed: use the jar of Low Country Produce Colonial Chutney that Fishy sent me last month as winner of the Haiku Monday she was hosting; and give the Breville Personal Pie Maker I bought from Williams and Sonoma last Christmas another go. The instructions caution to use pre-made, store-bought puff pastry only, but fork that. I never follow instructions. So the first time I attempted a meat pie for S.B.'s supper, I used my own pie crust, which didn't quite have the texture I was looking for. Also, I didn't make my filling juicy enough. Dry pies are not only no fun to eat, they also make S.B. grumpy.

In the interim, however, I was inspired by a Karmic Kitchen post to try my hand at a savory galette. I used Julia Child's recipe for the crust and my mother's recipe for the filling, basically a variation of the classic Alsatian onion tart filling.

I have to tell you, this is a GREAT crust, similar in texture to what I consider a perfect pot pie or craw fish pie crust: buttery and near puff-pastry flaky.




So, I figured, maybe this would be the perfect crust for the fussy little tiny pie machine? Last night, I gave it a go.

What:
One recipe Julia Child galette dough
Two large chicken breasts, pre-cooked, cooled to room temp, and cut into quarter inch chunks
One 16-ounce jar Low Country Produce Colonial Chutney, room tempertaure
Salt and pepper to taste (the chutney is pretty well-spiced, but some folks want extra)
Four ounces goat cheese

How:

Heat the little tiny pie maker.

Place cut up chicken, entire jar of chutney, and salt and pepper in a bowl and mix thoroughly.

On a clean, lightly floured surface, roll out the pre-chilled dough to about 3/16". Use the small side of the cutting thingee that comes with the little tiny pie maker to cut out four pie bottom rounds:

The reason why my dough looks so "rustic" is that I battled an invasion of pantry moths last November and have not yet replaced my stock of corn meal; instead, I just Cuisinart-ed a bunch of plain Doritos chips. Works great.

Set aside and re-roll dough to same thickness. Use the larger end of the cutting thingee to cut out four pie top rounds. All dough is now gone.

Place bottom rounds into the pie maker, and use the press thingee to push the dough firmly into place so that it comes up over the edge (you can see by the photo that I forgot to do this, but not to worry, the pies sealed anyway). Fill to the brim with the chicken, top each pie with 1 ounce of the goat cheese, and place the pie top rounds over the filling. Close lid and wait the 5-10 minutes it takes to seal and cook the pies.



When done, carefully scoop pies out with a thin, flexible plastic spatula, place on plate, and eat.




Verdict:
The filling was delicious. The crust, while tasty, didn't have the same texture as it did when I cooked it as a galette in the oven, leading me to conclude that there is something about this particular gizmo that isn't all that kind to crust. Plus, it undercooked the lower right hand pie, which didn't happen the first time I used it. Hmm.

I'm not quite ready to eBay this puppy yet, so I think I'll make S.B. some little tiny peach pies and see what this does to a sugar dough.

Bittersweet

Just because there are Brooklyn Bridge-sized gaps between my baking posts, doesn't mean I haven't been spending time in the kitchen. It just means I've been baking my standard issue sweet stuff, some of which I've already posted about here.

Now that the holiday season is gearing up, so am I. Baking and winter go together like central and heating, and when the days start getting progressively chillier, nothing warms me up physically or psychologically like working in a toasty kitchen making something sweet to eat. And then forcing those sweets onto unsuspecting friends and family. After all, if I'm going to add five pounds onto my rear end because of it, everyone else must suffer, too.

Baking is also wonderful therapy. When I'm up to my neck in work, frustrating deadlines, and any other number of life's little hassles, I shake things loose in my brain by doing something that requires both physical and mental exercise. Kind of like running, only I get to lick the bowl when I'm done.

This is what I made yesterday. Actually, it started the night before, when on a lark I decided to make a batch of caramel sauce, using the recipe in my tried and true copy of Williams and Sonoma's Pies and Tarts.

What:

1 cup granulated sugar
2 tablespoons water
1 cup heavy cream
1/2 teaspoon lemon juice

How:

In a heavy duty saucepan over medium high heat, stir together the sugar, water, and lemon juice. Stir just until mixed and then leave it alone, or your sugar will crystallize. Allow to cook until the sugar melts and just begins to turn a golden color. Turn heat to medium low and cook, shaking or tiling pan on occasion but not stirring, until a golden brown color. Remove from heat and add in the cream, pouring through a sieve to prevent splashing. Stir until cream is incorporated.

It will look like this. And it tastes fabulous. Better than anything you can buy in a store.

I have made caramel!

Now, what to do with it, other than eating it by the spoonful in front of the television? Why, make a tart, of course.

Normally, I'd use it to make a cranberry/almond tart, but since I didn't have any cranberries and I didn't have any slivered almonds, I decided to use apples and . . . what? Raisins? Nah. Pecans? Double nah. Then I remembered an apple and Gorgonzola pie I used to order at one of my favorite restaurants in Albuquerque, the now sadly defunct Chef du Jour. Man, it was delicious and I've never tried to replicate it. But blue cheese in some form or another is something I always have in my refrigerator, so there you go.

What:

For the dough:
1-1/4 cups all-purpose flour
3 tablespoons granulated sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
7 tablespoons unsalted butter, cold, and cut into 1/2-inch pieces
1 large egg yolk
3 tablespoons ice cold water
1/2 teaspoon vanilla

For the apple filling:
2 large or 3 medium cooking apples of your choice
Caramel
2 ounces blue veined cheese of your choice, crumbled
4 ounces sharp cheddar, grated

Blend together flour, sugar, salt, and butter in a larger bowl, either with your fingertips or a pastry blender until mixture resembles coarse meal. You can also do this in a food processor. Mixture should look like this:


Beat together the egg yolk, water, and vanilla then pour into middle of flour mixture and use fork to stir until a rough dough forms. Again, you can also do this in a food processor.

Then, pour mixture out onto a clean, lightly floured surface, and knead very briefly until a dough forms:


Do not overmix or your tart dough will be tough.

If making tart right away, roll dough out on a thoroughly floured work space to a little less than 1/4" thick. Place inside a 10" non-stick tart pan with removable bottom and freeze for 30 minutes.

At the 15 minute mark, place rack in the middle of your oven and pre-heat to 375 degrees F. Line tart pan with heavy duty tin foil and fill with pie weights or beans to weigh down. Place in oven and bake for 20 minutes.

In the meantime, core and peel apples. Cut in half, then cut the halves from the top or bottom end into wedges 1/8" thick.

Once tart is pre-baked, remove from oven and start layering apple slices in an overlapped, circular pattern.


Pour the caramel on top, making sure to coat the apples evenly.



Bake tart in oven for 25-30 minutes. Remove from oven and top with the cheeses. Place back in oven for another five minutes to melt.

Remove, cool, and place in refrigerator. Tart should be served cold.

If any of you is the person who consistently outbids Moi on eBay for these plates, stop it!

Dim Sum Sunday: Baking

The thing about having a sweet tooth the size of a Mac Truck is that, in spite of all my running/hiking/swimming/biking/worrying, the pounds can really sneak up on my ass because of it. So I haven't been doing much baking lately. I think I'm still hungover from all that holiday partying, so I've mostly been sating my sweet tooth with fruit and tiny bits (ah hem) of hard candy. But when Shamu announced a Dim Sunday Sunday with a baking theme, how could I resist?

This recipe is inspired by something La Diva Cucina made during my recent visit to her swanky Miami abode. After plying Moi with wine, tostones, grilled skirt steak with chimichurri sauce, potato salad and the best cole slaw I've ever had, I still managed to have room left over for a fig compote with walnuts, balsamic vinegar, and mascarpone cheese. Which promptly made me think of how wonderful the combo would be as a tart. Which I fully intended to make for this challenge, but when I found out a dinner guest to whom I would serve the tart didn't like figs (!?!?!), I used strawberries instead. But I still intend to use the figs at some point . . .

Anyway, here's what I did, using what in my mind is the most fail safe tart dough known to man, courtesy the sadly now defunct Gourmet magazine. I apologize in advance for the crap photos. I STILL can't figure out my camera. Sheesh. Math.

STRAWBERRY & MASCARPONE TARTLETS

What:

For the dough:
1-1/4 cups all-purpose flour
3 tablespoons granulated sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
7 tablespoons unsalted butter, cold, and cut into 1/2-inch pieces
1 large egg yolk
3 tablespoons ice cold water
1/2 teaspoon vanilla

For the strawberries:
Core and cut into half a pound of fresh, ripe strawberries, and place in large bowl. Sprinkle with 1/4 cup of granulated sugar stir, and let sit about 30-45 minutes, stirring occasionally. Place strawberries in a sieve over a small saucepan, and let the juices slowly strain into the pan, about 30-60 minutes. Reserve berries. Add to the juice in the pan 1/4 cup of balsamic vinegar (you can also use any alcohol of choice, like sherry, port, Kirsch, etc.), along with a tablespoon of sugar. Stir and bring mixture to a rapid boil until sugar has fully dissolved, about 2-3 minutes. Let sit for about 30 minutes to cool and thicken.

For mascarpone:
Take one pound of mascarpone cheese (2 cups) and thoroughly mix with 1/4 cup of confectioners sugar, and one teaspoon each of fresh lemon juice and vanilla extract.

Hardware:
Set of six, 3" diameter tartlet pans (I like the shiny tin ones from Williams and Sonoma. They're French, don't cha know, and their surface is perfect—your dough won't stick, but neither will it slip and shrink while baking like non-stick surfaces tend to do.)

OR: a 10" round tart pan with removable bottom.

How:
Blend together flour, sugar, salt, and butter in a larger bowl, either with your fingertips or a pastry blender until mixture resembles coarse meal. You can also do this in a food processor. Mixture should look like this:


Beat together the egg yolk, water, and vanilla then pour into middle of flour mixture and use fork to stir until a rough dough forms. Again, you can also do this in a food processor.

Then, pour mixture out onto a clean, lightly floured surface, and knead very briefly until a dough forms:


DO NOT OVER MIX or your tart dough will be tough.

Form dough into a flat disk about 5" around, wrap in wax paper, and refrigerate for 30 minutes or up to overnight.

Pre-heat oven to 375 degrees F. with rack placed in the middle of the oven.

Once dough is thoroughly chilled, take out of fridge and roll out into a round disk about 1/4" thick. Use tartlet pans to cut out perfectly formed disks and press those disks evenly into the pans, building up a kind of ridge at the top. Place tartlets on a larger baking pan.


Line each pan with a small piece of tin foil and fill with pie weights or beans to weigh down. Place in oven and bake for 20 minutes. Take pan from oven and carefully remove foil and weights. Place back in oven and cook another 15-20 minutes, turning once, until shells are an all over uniform deep golden brown. Cool in pans about 30-45 minutes.

To assemble your tartlets, spread about two tablespoons of mascarpone in each tart shell. Then, top with strawberries and drizzle the balsamic vinegar glaze over the top.



EAT!

Birthday Pie

In response to Da Troll’s challenge to come up with a pie to celebrate Secretariat’s birthday on this Sunday, March 30th, I thought I would present to you one of my all-time favorite pies. Y’all most likely know this one. It’s scandalously easy, and oh-so-cheesy and I mean that figuratively, like, in a very 1970s way.

Lately, I've been on this 1970s kick. The fashion, the décor. Trans Ams. Famolares. Farrah Fawcett hair. Those little round, bright yellow radios on chains – remember those? – playing Terry Jacks' "Season in the Sun" over and over and over. AND, Secretariat was born in 1970. So there you have it. The ‘70s were simply fab.

Anyway, I was introduced to the weird deliciousness of Pistachio Pineapple Pie by one of my Aunts, my father’s youngest sister, a woman of exceptional patience and humor who each summer for several years had the dubious honor of hosting me, my brother, my father, and my bazillion cousins at her house in Massachusetts. How this woman put up with all our happy asses for two whole months, camped out as we were on her back lawn, running savage through the neighborhood, eating her out of house and home, I’ll never know. I should ask her one day. I wouldn’t be surprised if her answer was: “Percoset.” She did, after all, work for a dentist for a while.

At any rate, one of her favorite things to do with us was bake. Seriously. Five bazillion of us kids in her kitchen at one time, only two of us girls, making, among other things, this pie. And when it was finished, she’d mock-screech at us: “Now out of my hair and my kitchen, you little horrors [it always came out hah-ruhs – she may have been living in suburban New England bliss, but she was NYC born ‘n’ raised]. No pie for you until after dinner.”

And although I am posting this recipe in honor of a birth, I must also tell you one other association I have with this dessert. It was the pie we ate in silent solemnity the night my uncle came home, eyes rimmed red, his face slack, to tell us that Elvis Presley had just died.

Enjoy.

What:
1 16 oz. can crushed pineapple, undrained
1 four person-serving package of instant pistachio-flavored Jell-O pudding
1 16 oz. tub Cool Whip
1 graham cracker crust, preferably homemade, but whatever, for 9" round pie pan
1 cup whipped cream, whipped up until stiff and fluffy, with two tablespoons sugar
1/2 cup chopped pistachios, unsalted

How:
In a large mixing bowl, stir together pineapple with juice and Cool Whip. Sprinkle in pudding, a little at a time, and whip well to avoid lumps. Poor into crust. Put in refrigerator and let set until firm, 2-3 hours. Top with the whipped cream and chopped pistachios.

Woo With Pie

In the early days of Moi's and SB's courtship, when I was trying to decide whether or not date him long term, I went over to his place one afternoon to find him working away in the kitchen. Making this pie - Lemon Icebox Pie as his people call it.

Lemon Icebox Pie was the deciding factor for Moi. There's nothing sexier than a man who cooks. Doesn't matter that once they got you, the only time they ever enter a kitchen ever, ever again is to pop a beer or stare forlornly at the contents of the refrigerator, whining that they can't find the milk when it's right there in front of them!

Anyway.

This pie is sooooooo good, it will be your go-to sweet for just about everything you need to accomplish with another human being: seduction, contrition, bribery, and utter happiness making.

What:• 1 box 'Nilla Wafers

• 2 tablespoons unsalted butter (the Pirate tells Moi to go to Trader Joe's and buy Irish butter NOW), softened but not melted

• 1 14-ounce can sweetened condensed milk

• 4 large eggs, separated and at room temperature

• Finely grated peel of two large lemons*

• Juice of three large lemons, about 2/3 to 3/4 cup

How:
Preheat oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit.

Set aside 16 'Nilla wafers (and 5-6 more if, like Moi, you like to snack while baking). Place the rest of the cookies, along with the 2 tablespoons of softened butter, in the bowl of a food processor or blender and pulse until finely crushed. Pour into an 8" round pie pan and pat firmly and evenly along the bottom and up the sides. Ring the pan with the 16 'Nilla wafters, spacing evenly, like so:

Make filling by whisking together in a large bowl with a balloon whip the can of sweetened, condensed milk, the 4 egg yolks, lemon juice, and the grated lemon peel (* use the finest setting of a cheese grater for this, or a special tool called a microplane, and make sure you don't grate the bitter, white pith of the peel – just the bright yellow stuff). When finished whisking, mixture should have a pudding-like consistency.

Pour into pie shell:

Now, make the meringue topping like I told you.

Top pie.


Bake in the middle of the oven for 10-15 minutes, or until nicely (as opposed to meanly) browned:


Cool on wire rack about 1.5 hours. Refrigerate and chill, 3-4 hours before serving.

Hint: the cookies are a guide to how large a slice you should cut. You been good and done your exercises for the day? Cut a three-cookie slice. Vegged out all day? You may want to bump that down to one or two cookies there, ace.

Either way, pour a big ol' glass of milk to go with it and enjoy!