Shrimp Quiche

Here’s one I did for Christmas with wild prawns that I boiled first, sliced in half lengthwise, and then cooled a bit so they wouldn’t start cooking the eggs when I added them. Served with pickled green beans, caramelized onions, and plum duck sauce, it was a hit.

Recipe Note

The custard was 4 eggs and a couple cups of milk along with a handful or two of grated Swiss and a nice pinch of salt. Paprika on top didn’t hurt the cause either.

Details

There’s no reason a person couldn’t pep things up with some Dijon mustard stirred into the eggs–as well as flash cook a chop of pretty green veggies like broccoli or kale and maybe some roasted red peppers.

Mushrooms, of course, are also obvious choices, although if you go for shrooms try to find organic as they have to use–gross I know, but we need to know this stuff–bug spray in conventional operations.

Home Made Pie Crust

Use two parts flour to one part fat for your crust. In the pie pictured, I used two cups of unbleached white flour (departing from my usual whole wheat pastry flour) and two or three pinches of salt to two cubes of cold butter pared off in thin bits with a knife. That way the butter is fairly easy to work into the flour by pressing the bits flat with your fingers and not putting too fine a point on things (see the details below). Then little splashes of ice water, using your hands to help the dough come together gently.

The idea with pie crust is to let the dough press itself together without stirring per se. Your hands are more guides than they are mixers. So just keep sprinkling water around on the parts that are still dry until the dough forms into a nice soft mound.

For this much dough you’ll have enough for a bottom shell and a small sugar cinnamon tart or something fun like that for the kitchen helpers. If you want to make a two crust pie, use 3 cups of flour and 3 cubes of butter. Then form the dough into 2 soft balls.

To roll your crust out, flour a board and a rolling pin–or even a wine bottle if a pin’s not around. Turn the dough fairly often and keep dusting with flour so things don’t stick.

I think you’ll be surprised at how easy pie crust is. The main trick is getting a dough that holds together by using just enough water to pat things together. That way you avoid trying to work with a dough that cracks because it’s too dry–as well as a dough that simply has more water than it needs.

Bake your pie in a hot, 425 degree oven for ten minutes to jump start the bottom crust. Then back the heat off a good hundred degrees for a slow cook on the filling. Check your pie now and again, and turn it, since if your oven’s like mine it’s hotter at the back. Pies are done when the tip of your sharp knife signals soft fruit within or a custard-type filling that lets the knife slip out clean.

Details

When I worked at My Mom’s Pie shop way back, I’d make pies during my off hours and take wedges into the owner, Jean McLaughlin. Her main tip was to not get up tight about working the fat into the flour perfectly. And I did find that my crusts got flakier when I didn’t worry about the little pea-sized bits and left rather big shards of butter here and there. I got two thumbs up from Jean too, who wondered if I was planning on opening my own shop.

Grandma-GK’s Rhubarb Pie

There’s the clump of rhubarb Grandma planted out back. Then there’s decades of listening to Prairie Home Companion’s Garrison Keillor talk about how Beebop-A-Rebop Rhubarb Pie “takes the taste of humiliation out of your mouth.” Between Grandma and Beebop-A-Rebop, I had to give a nod to the institution of rhubarb pie.

Recipe Note

Use a ratio of two parts flour to one part fat for your crust. In this case, I used two cups of unbleached white flour and two or three pinches of salt to two cubes of cold butter pared off in bits with a small knife. That way the butter’s fairly easy to work into the flour by pressing the bits flat with your fingers. Then little splashes of ice water, using your hands to help the dough come together gently. All the recipes I consulted call for glass, nonreactive pie plates for rhubarb, so I used one, although as you can see, I set it in a giant cast iron pan to help the cause of getting the bottom done.

A couple pounds of chopped rhubarb—or enough to mound nicely into one large pie shell—takes a little less than a cup and a half of sugar and around a third cup of thickening like tapioca flour or just regular flour. Use a nonreactive bowl to keep the rhubarb from darkening. Then a little bold spice is fun. I used allspice that I ground fresh in the coffee grinder. And once I got the lattice on and painted with a wash to make it shine—an egg white stirred up with a little water—I sprinkled more allspice on the crust as well.

Bake in a hot, 425 degree oven for ten minutes to jump start the bottom crust. Then back the heat off a good hundred degrees for a slow cook on the fruit and the top crust. Check your pie fairly often and turn it, since if your oven’s like mine it’s hotter at the back.  Pies are done when the tip of your sharp knife signals soft fruit within.

~When I worked at My Mom’s Pie shop way back, I’d make pies during my off hours and take wedges into the owner, Jean McLaughlin, for critique. Her main tip was to not get up tight about working the fat into the flour perfectly.  And I did find that my crusts got flakier when I trusted the dough and myself more.

~I started getting two thumbs up from Jean as well, who wondered aloud at one point if I was planning on opening my own pie shop and turning into her competitor. I didn’t do that, but I kept up with the pie making, even learning to flatten the rim of the crust some after you crimp the top and bottom crusts together. That way the edges won’t burn and there’s no need for those strips of aluminum foil some want you to mess with.

~This pie is the only one I’ve made in decades without using 100 percent whole wheat pastry flour. That’s because the person I was making it before had a delicate tummy that required pasty things instead of whole grains. So, if you’re in the whole wheat or other whole grain flour groove, know that pies turn out great without a speck of white flour.

Cinnamon Brandy Apples

Hippie Kitchen, p. 120
Recipe Note

Dissolve a spoon of arrowroot powder or cornstarch in a little cold water before adding to grated apple laced with lemon juice for a simmer.

Cinnamon, nutmeg, pure vanilla extract, and little brandy turns these apples goopy and homey and good.

Flax Meal Pie Crust

Hippie Kitchen, p. 124
Recipe Note

Work bits of room temperature caramelized goat cheese into flax meal, oat bran, and salt. Add a little balsamic vinegar and enough water to bring the dough together.

Pinocchio full

Roll out and cut into strips for a lattice. Weave over the top of Cinnamon Brandy Apples or Roasted Plums and bake this rustic top crust until it’s nut brown.

If you want shine—something I didn’t bother with in the one pictured here—brush the crust with milk or an egg white plus a little water beaten with a fork.