World’s Best Ice Cream!

October 18th, 2022

Ok, I haven’t tasted all of the ice cream in the world.  But I have tasted enough to know that this ice cream isn’t just good, it’s amazing.  And best of all, the base is easily customizable into a plethora of flavors, based on what you like and what you have on hand.

Believe it or not, this tiny contraption my son is using makes an amazing end product, but not much of it.

I absolutely recommend instead getting an electric, old-fashioned style ice cream maker. These are easy to use and have significantly more cooling capacity than most frozen bowl style ice cream churns.  

Combining salt with the ice and water that surrounds the ice cream bucket makes a huge difference.  Whereas an ice bath made without salt will always be 32° F, adding 2 cups of salt to the mix lowers it to 22° F, helping your ice cream base to freeze more quickly (leading to smaller ice crystals and a more pleasant mouth feel).

Best of all, machines of this type are quite affordable, particularly when you can find them used.  Just be sure that all of the pieces are in good condition (e.g. show no signs of rust or corrosion and the motor works well).

The real key to fantastic ice cream, though, is the base that you use to create it. Using a high amount of fat, liquid sugars, and egg yolks all help to create a smooth emulsification and a luxurious result. I’m not going to say that this is an easy recipe to make, but I will say that it is straightforward.  With attention to details like heat level and custard temperature, you can make amazing ice cream at home very easily.  Here’s the basic ice cream base, and also a few variations that I can vouch for. Read the rest of this entry »

Raspberry Sour Cream Coffee Cake

April 26th, 2022

This is a fruit-filled variation on a sour cream coffee cake that my mother makes.  I’ve added whole grains in the form of the oats and fruit in the form of the raspberries.  I baked it in a 9 x 13 cast iron pan from Lodge but you could bake it in a bundt pan just as easily.

Raspberry Sour Cream Coffee Cake
Cake Ingredients:

  • 2 Eggs
  • 1/2 cup butter, melted
  • 1 cup sugar
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 1 tsp orange liqueur such as 43 or triple sec
  • 1 cup sour cream
  • 2 cups flour
  • 1 tsp baking powder
  • 1 tsp baking soda
Filling/topping ingredients:
  • 1/2 cup flour
  • 1/2 cup brown sugar
  • 1/2 cup rolled oats or quick oats
  • 1 tsp cinnamon
  • 1/2 tsp nutmeg
  • 1/4 cup melted butter
Directions:
  1. Preheat oven to 350 F.
  2. Beat eggs
  3. Drizzle melted butter into eggs while whisking to incorporate it.
  4. Add salt, sugar, orange liqueur, and sour cream.  Stir to combine.
  5. In a separate bowl, combine flour, baking powder, and baking soda.
  6. Pour liquid mixture into dry mixture and fold until just combined.
  7. Make the filling/topping in the bowl that was used for the liquid mixture by combining all ingredients except raspberries and stirring until crumbly.
  8. Put about 1/3 of the batter into a greased 9 x 13 or bundt pan and spread to a thin, even layer.
  9. Spread raspberries in an even layer and then top with half of the crumb mixture.
  10. Spread the remaining batter on top of the raspberries and filling.  The berries and filling might get mixed up a little in the batter.  Don’t sweat it, this is expected!
  11. Top with the remaining filling/topping.
  12. Bake for 55-60 minutes or until a cake tester or toothpick comes out clean (if using a glass 9 x 13 pan, this may be in as little as 40 minutes)
  13. Enjoy!

Chicken Fried Steak

March 24th, 2022

Tuesday, I finally made a chicken fried steak that I really enjoyed, with a crispy breading and really great flavor, the sort of steak I would be pleased to get at a truck stop or diner.  Somethign that, when I brought it to the table, both of my kids asked me if it was chicken.

Of course, I did it on a Tuesday when I didn’t even get home from work until 5:00 and had to launch straight into dinner prep to get it all done before bedtime, so I don’t have any pictures.  But I’m writing it up anyway so I have a reference for what I did next time I go to make it (including a note to myself: take pictures!)

Chicken Fried Steak
Ingredients:

  • 1 thin, bottom round steak
  • 2 eggs
  • ~.75 cups yogurt
  • Spices for the liquid mixture
  • ~ 1/2 cup flour
  • ~1 cup panko style bread crumbs
  • Spices for the breading mixture
  • 1/2 tsp baking soda
  • Oil for frying
Steps:
  1. Place steak between two layers of plastic wrap on a durable surface and beat it with a meat mallet until it’s been flattened to 1/8 inch of its life.  Trim fat and connective tissue, divide into smaller pieces.  Season with some salt, pepper.
  2. Put cast iron pan on over medium-low flame and heat ~1/4 inch of oil to 350 degrees.  Monitor it, maybe will need to turn the flame down after the oil has been heated.
  3. Preheat oven to 375 degrees and stage a clean sheet tray in it.
  4. Beat eggs, mix in yogurt and spices for liquid mixture
  5. Put trimmed and beaten steak pieces into liquid mix, toss to coat thoroughly.
  6. Combine flour, breadcrumbs, and other spices
  7. Remove steak pieces from egg and yogurt mix and, being careful to maintain your dominant hand as a dry hand and your non-dominant hand as a wet hand, coat the steak with the flour and breadcrumb mix, put on a plate to the side.
  8. Mix baking soda into remaining flour and breadcrumb mix.
  9. Return once-coated steaks to the remaining yogurt and egg mix, then dredge again through remaining flour and breadcrumb mix.  Ideally, you’re down to just about nil in both by the time you get the second bread coating on the last piece of steak.
  10. Make sure oil is at 350 degrees.  Turn flame up a bit if you reduced it during the prep time.  Put 3-4 pieces of steak (depending on what will fit) into the cast iron skillet.
  11. When browned, flip steak carefully with a combo of a fish spatula and a set of tongs.
  12. When second side has browned, transfer to the preheated pan in the preheated oven.
  13. Finish for all remaining pieces of steak.
  14. Drain oil out of pan.  Optional: saute some green beans in the pan as a side dish.
  15. Optional: after green beans have cooked, use some of the drained oil as the starting point for a roux and mix up a quick gravy to go on top of the steak.
  16. Serve to 2 delighted people and one person who removes the breading that you are so proud of and stacks it on the side of his plate while he eats the steak from inside of the breading.

Maraschino Cherries– So Easy!

May 12th, 2020

You probably don’t remember– I barely do!– that back about 14 years ago, I looked at what the Industrial Maraschino Cherry Complex does to produce their maraschino cherries.  It seemed complicated.  I gave it very little thought.

Then, in what must be the most first world of first world problems, I ran low on cherries to garnish my Manhattans.  Heavens to Betsy, whatever is one to do?

As it turns out, I have been stocking my freezer for a pandemic for years. So I dug into the back, where about 18 months ago, I stashed a rather large bag of tart cherries that I bought so I can make a cherry pie on a whim, and I figured, how hard can it be to make sugar-preserved cherries for garnishing?

I boiled a couple of cups of them in a simple syrup made from .67 cups each water and sugar.  The syrup turned red.  I poured them into a sanitized mason jar.  I added a couple of teaspoons of lime juice to cut through the sugar and also guard against crystallization as they sit in storage.

They’re good. Not perfect.  But good enough that I feel no need to buy artificially dyed cherries again– which ain’t half bad for version 1.0!

Doughnuts Worth Writing About

December 24th, 2019

I’ve been trying to perfect my doughnut recipe for at least 3 years now.

That sounds more impressive than it actually is; I’ve probably only made them a half dozen times in that stretch.  But each time, I’ve discovered something that didn’t quite work the way I wanted it to and come up with a piece of the puzzle on my next attempt.  And now I finally have a recipe worth writing down and remembering.

The yeasted dough is light and flavorful.  It takes a glaze or spiced sugar quite nicely.  It’s absolutely mouth-wateringly delicious sliced open and spread with a bit of jam, even if I still haven’t conquered a technique that lets me inject jelly into a pocket in the center.  In short, it’s finally worth writing down.

A couple of notes that are important to getting this recipe to work correctly:

  • flour type matters: For this recipe, all-purpose flour is the right choice. trying to use bread flour makes the finished doughnut a bit too chewy.
  • knead minimally: A bit of kneading will bring the dough together. But too much develops the gluten too much. So, just so much and no more.
  • the size of dough balls matters: It’s tempting to say close enough is close enough. But for the dough to cook predictably, so that you can have 3 or 4 doughnuts all in the pan at once and know that they are all done at the same time, you want to pull out your scale and weigh them out to 3 ounces each. Precisely.
  • make the hole in the center bigger than the finished hole should be: Because as the bread cooks, it will rise and the hole will shrink. And the hole helps them cook all the way through, as they are exposed to more oil.
  • make the discs flat for jelly nuts: Too thick and they don’t cook all the way through.
  • the oil temperature matters: too hot and the doughnuts get overdone on the outside before they are done in the center. Too cold and the doughnut gets greasy. 375 when the doughnuts go in, this will drop the temp to 350 for cooking. Just what you want.
  • temp the doughnut to make sure that it’s done: It’s easy to pull the doughnut too soon and then you bite into the center and find it’s still doughy. Use your instant read digital thermometer (I recommend Thermoworks’ Thermapen. If you’re left handed, it’s worth it to get the MK4. I get nothing for suggesting this. I just like their product). Aim for about 180 degrees in the center.
  • Have your toppings ready for as soon as the doughnuts come out of the oil: You want to coat the doughnuts with the spiced sugar or the glaze while they are still hot and fresh, or the toppings won’t stick.
  • let the oil recover between batches. The time you spend glazing or sugaring the freshly cooked doughnuts is probably sufficient. But double check the oil temp before you put each round into the grease.
    Yeasted Doughnuts

    Ingredients:

    • about 8 cups of all purpose flour
    • 2 Tbl Kosher salt
    • a couple good fistfuls brown sugar
    • A nice shake of cinnamon
    • A bit more brown sugar–maybe a couple Tbl
    • 2 Tbl dried yeast. The regular stuff. Not the instant stuff.
    • 2 eggs
    • 1 stick (8 Tbl) butter
    • 120 degree water– not quite 4 cups. Enough to bring the dough together.

    Technique:

    1. Combine the flour, salt, first instance of brown sugar, and the cinnamon together in a large mixing bowl.
    2. Pull out about a cup of the mixture and add the second instance of brown sugar & the yeast to it.
    3. Add about a cup of the 120 degree water to this. Stir a couple of times and let it sit for about 10 minutes to make a sponge.
    4. Meanwhile, beat the eggs in a small bowl and then beat the melted butter into it. Stir this into the large mixing bowl of flour etc.
    5. When your sponge has sat and is nice and foamy, stir it in with the flour, egg, butter mix. Heat your water back up to 120 degrees (check the temp!) and then stir in enough of it with a wooden spoon. When the dough comes together, pour it out onto a well-floured surface and knead just enough to bring it together.
    6. Wash and dry your big mixing bowl. Put the dough into it, coated with just a little bit of olive oil. Cover with a dish cloth and leave in a warm area for an hour or so while you go watch cartoons, read the newspaper, do some laundry, or whatever else it is you want to tend to while you’re letting the dough rise. The contestants on teh Great British Baking show always fret over their stuff during bread week. I always suggest to my television that they should have brought a crossword puzzle with them. They never listen.
    7. Divide the risen dough into 3-ounce pieces. Shape them into balls and let them rest for about 20 minutes while you make the glaze and the spiced sugar. Also heat up the cooking oil in a deep cast iron skillet. If you’ve got my stove, you want the oil to heat on about level 4, bumping it up to 6 or 8 as you approach cooking time. But you’re going to have to do some experimenting with your stove.
    8. Shape the doughnuts by gently pinching and turning to make a hole in the center. You know what they’re supposed to look like.
    9. When your oil hits 375, add doughnuts to the Fry 4 doughnuts at a time if you’re using my skillet. Your pan might call for more or fewer. I tried to figure out the magic time, but it was all by visual cues. And verified that they were ready by taking their internal temperature.
    10. Glaze or sugar the doughnuts as soon as they come out of the oil.
    11. Repeat until they’re all done. For my $0.02, the glazed are fantastic hot but the spiced keep better as leftovers. You can microwave them before serving for a second go-round.
    Glaze

    • Zest from a couple of clementines.
    • Juice from said clementines
    • Powdered sugar

    Spiced Sugar

    • Granulated sugar
    • Cinnamon
    • Cardamom
    • Nutmeg

Vote CKPgh for Google Impact Award

March 8th, 2018

Community Kitchen Pittsburgh is a Hazelwood-based nonprofit that provides hands-on training to adults with barriers to employment to help them gain culinary skills and work experience as a bridge to stable employment and a living wage.  The organization has been awarded $50,000 from Google to further its work and is eligible for an additional $50,000 if it comes out tops in an online vote that ends on March 14.  Your click can help,

https://www.communitykitchenpittsburgh.org/award.

Why should you support Community Kitchen for this money?

So, there’s been a lot of stuff in the news lately about the opioid crisis.  I’d like you to think in specific terms about how a person could be affected by drug use or the drug trade–and how Community Kitchen can help change their prospects.

Imagine being the person who got hooked on opioids after a serious injury led a doctor to prescribing you some heavy duty pain killers.  Your supply runs out, one thing leads to another and next thing you know, you’re out of a job, out of a house, out of money and hooked on heroin in a scenario that you always imagined you’d be immune to.

Maybe you get nabbed on drug posession and you do a stint in jail.  We’ll just gloss over that year, because it really sucks.  But coming out isn’t the grand release that you thought it would be.  You’re stuck in a halfway house.  Nobody wants to give you a job because of your record and your gap in employment history.  You’re going to meetings and doing well.  But, when your stay at the halfway house comes due, your prospects for something better are not coming up the way you thought they’d be.  And, because your conviction was for drugs, you can’t even qualify for federal financial aid to go back to school to learn new skills.

Restaurants are booming in Pittsburgh, but culinary schools are not.  Restaurants have a shortage of workers.  This means that they are paying more to keep the workers they have and always trying to recruit new people to work their lines.  And, most restaurants will give people with convictions a second chance.  If only you had any culinary experience, maybe you could land one of these jobs.

That’s where Community Kitchen Pittsburgh comes in.  With scholarships for all students to offset all training costs, Community Kitchen provides students with a 12-week, intensive program of classes and support to gain the skills they need to land a skilled entry-level position as a prep cook.  They offer help to find housing and a job, and support services to help overcome the other barriers you face.  Students prepare school lunches, meals for homeless shelters, and food for catered events while they learn the ins and outs of working in a commercial kitchen.

All of this adds up to real support to help people who find themselves in situations they never imagined would happen to them, pick themselves up and move forward toward a brighter future.

Support Community Kitchen Pittsburgh with your vote today.  Click https://www.communitykitchenpittsburgh.org/award.

The Same Cake?

February 28th, 2018

My mom and I have an ongoing discussion about what it means to follow a recipe.

She says, when you follow a recipe, you follow each step; no variation, no substitutions.  Otherwise, you’re not cooking that recipe.

I say, recipes are strong guides.  But, you might be short of something or in the mood for a little twist.  So, make educated substitutions and alterations to fit your needs.

This topic came up again last weekend when I made one of my mom’s pound cake recipes for dinner.  Or did I?

I’ll let you decide.  Either way you decide to make this cake, it is both easy to throw together and a treat to eat!

My mom’s pound cake (with my variations)

  • 2.25 cups flour
  • 2 cups sugar (brown sugar)
  • 0.5 tsp baking soda
  • 0.5 tsp salt
  • 1 tsp vanilla (rum.  and let’s face it, I didn’t measure, I just tipped the bottle for what looked right)
  • 1 cup softened butter
  • 1 cup sour cream (I didn’t have any.  I had 0.75 cup plain, full fat yogurt.  I figured this would give the acidity the baking powder needs for leavening.  I added 0.25 cup heavy cream so I’d have the 1 cup and also for fat content)
  • 3 eggs
  • (cinnamon)
  1. Combine all ingredients in a bowl and use an electric mixer to blend for about 3 minutes.  Pour into a greased and floured bundt pan and bake at 325 degrees F for 60-65 minutes or until the top springs back when touched lightly in the center (took closer to 70).
  2. Let cool in the pan for 10 minutes then invert onto a plate.  Pour butter glaze over it while it’s still warm.

Butter glaze

  • 0.25 cup melted butter
  • 1 cup powdered sugar
  • 0.5 tsp vanilla (rum)
  • (up to) 2 Tbl water to adjust consistency
  • (nutmeg)

So, this is where following the recipe exactly steered me wrong… I added the 2 Tbl water all at once and it got way too thin.  Add the water slowly, a bit at a time.  It should be thick enough to drizzle over the cake and run down the sides, but not gloopy.

Some of it will run into the center and pool around the outside of the cake.  My siblings and I would run our fingers through this before dinner to taste the frosting; and at dessert, my grandfather would fish it out to spread on top of his piece (and share with us as well).

This really was a nice cake.  Even my mom had to admit it.  “But if you put my cake and this one side by side,” she said, “someone would have a hard time telling they came from the same recipe.”

What I’ve Been Cooking Lately

February 22nd, 2018

Professionally, I’ve been navigating USDA requirements for meat analogues for school lunch programs and trying to work out a recipe that would be accepted by a state monitor as having sufficient protein quantity at an acceptable pdcaas digestibility score.  Fascinating stuff.  Mainly for how difficult it becomes to serve neither meat nor processed foods to vegetarian school children.  But also mentally exhausting, which is one big reason that I don’t write much here anymore…

The personal stuff is quite a bit more fun, particularly when the kids decide that they want to cook with me.

Faraday is about to turn 4, and tends to cook with me quite a bit.  He can clean mushrooms with a brush and pick leaves off of fresh herbs, but he’s mainly there for the tasting privileges that come with helping me in the kitchen.  I’ll take what I can get.

When we’re in the kitchen, he tells me, “You’re the chef and I’m the cook.”

“What’s the cook’s job?” I ask him.

“To do whatever the chef says.”

I’ve got him trained well.  At least in the kitchen.  Outside of the kitchen, I cease being the chef and he ceases to see his job as being to do whatever I say.

Angstrom is 7.6667, and starting to come into his own when he wants to help.  He’s usually more interested in reading, which is also a fine activity.  But, as he’s getting older, he is becoming an actual help.  I can give him a block of cheese and a grater and he’ll turn it into shredded cheese for us.  He’s also starting to get the hang of using the knife that I got him (perhaps a bit prematurely) for his 6th birthday.  I still keep an eye on him to make sure he’s got his thumb and fingers out of the way, but he does a fine job slicing mushrooms on his own.

He also has been interested in making sure I write down my recipes.  That can be tough because so often I am just reaching into the fridge to take what we happen to have and turn it into dinner.  We won’t necessarily have the same leftovers the next time, so the recipes may not be re-creatable.  Not to mention the fact that I so rarely measure.

But… I did make a very nice cheddar, broccoli, and potato soup the other day that he asked me to document.  So, because Janice asked what I’ve been cooking and Angstrom wants me to preserve my recipes, here is the best I can do on that front:

Loaded Baked Potato Soup

  • Bacon Grease leftover from cooking a metric s*it ton of bacon for brunch.  Not all of it.  Probably about 1/3 cup.  Maybe a half of a cup.  A good knob’s worth scooped out of the custard dish of bacon grease with my favorite wooden spoon.
  • Garlic, sliced thinly.  A bulb’s worth.  (bulbs seem to be about the right unit to measure in.  Never trust a recipe that calls for 1-2 cloves of garlic)
  • Flour, sufficient to make a roux the consistency of wet sand.  Add slowly as described below.
  • Stock.  I’m not sure if it was chicken or vegetable.  Either would work.  Probably about 2 cups; I had about half of one of the boxes from the supermarket leftover.  Lately, I’ve been partial to whatever brand is low in sodium and labeled “cooking stock”, though I really should make my own.
  • Milk, about 3-4 cups, I think?  1%.
  • Leftover roasted potatoes and broccoli, from the same brunch that you cooked the bacon for.  Probably about 4 cups combined of those?  All of the broccoli that was left and most of the potatoes.
  • Cheese.  A mix of 3-year-old Vermont white cheddar and supermarket meunster.  There might have been some parmesan in the mix, too.  2.5 cups, shredded?
  • Spices.  Definitely black pepper.  I probably used Aleppo pepper, too.  If you don’t have any, I highly recommend getting some right away.  Penzey’s sells it.  So does the random multi-ethnic grocery store I shopped in Temeculah, CA once.  So there are probably some other sources, too.  And I bet I used some nutmeg, but only a touch.
  • Herbs.  Thyme, oregano.  Basil?  Whatever you like.  Sage.
  1. Saute the garlic in the bacon fat.  When it just starts to turn golden brown,
  2. Stir the flour in slowly until the roux gets to the consistency of wet sand.  When in doubt, stop adding flour but keep stirring.  If it looks too loose, add some more.  Go ahead and crack your pepper into here, too.  Keep on stirring the roux until the garlic encased therein has mellowed to a gorgeous golden color.
  3. Whisk in the stock, followed by the milk.  Break up the lumps, scrape the corners with your wooden spoon.  Whisk some more.  That’s it, looking good there now.
  4. Let it simmer for a bit.  15-20 minutes out to do to let the flour cook out.  Add the potatoes.  Some of their starch will cook out and add to the consistency of the soup.  Let it simmer another 15-20.
  5. How’s the consistency?  If it’s too thick, go ahead and add some milk.  If not, add the broccoli.  And if you add milk, go ahead and add the broccoli, too.
  6. When it all comes up to temp, drop that heat back way down to low.  Stir the cheese in, slowly now.  Let it melt before you add more, just a handful at a time.
  7. Taste it.  Adjust seasonings.  It very well could benefit from some salt.  I swear by Diamond Crystal kosher salt for most purposes, but it irks me that they eliminated the metal pour spout from their 3-pound box.  Now, every time I fill up my little salt dish, I have to tape the cardboard flap back closed with masking tape.  But it’s still fine salt nonetheless.
  8. Tell everyone it’s time to come to the table.  Get ignored.  Walk into the dining room and discover that the table isn’t even set yet.  Make a Pinky & the Brain reference about how it’s the same thing every night, you’ve got to set the table for dinner.  Listen to some griping as the kids get the bowls put around the table.
  9. Wait for one of the kids to go to the bathroom.  Once he comes down, wait some more because the other one will realize that he also urgently needs to go.  Maybe turn the heat back on under the soup while you’re waiting so it doesn’t get too cold.
  10. Wait, what, is everyone here?  Did you wash your hands when you finished in the bathroom?  Did you do an adequate job?  Okay, dinner is served.

Art

February 13th, 2018

So, back in 2006, I was featured in a 2-artist show at a gallery in Lawrenceville and haven’t shown any artwork publicly since.  Seeing as I’m not doing much of anything with this page, I figured I’d put up a couple of shots for the 3 people who still have this on their RSS Feed (hi, Janice!)

Back in 1997, I had an idea that I could paint in words.  I’ve been spending the odd evening since sometime in 2000 trying to follow through on the concept.  Here are 2 of my more recent works; click on any thumbnail for a larger image:

All Your Life, You Were Only Waiting For This Moment To Arrive

Personal reflections in swirls of color; a blackbird emerges from the center, ready to take flight.

24″ x 30″, oil on canvas,

2018, available

Fuck You Warhol, You Never Even Liked This Town

Musings on Warhol’s tendency to settle for 65% of an idea (peeing on metal) instead of taking it all the way there (peeing on metal to make a picture) and also thoughts on how fervently the city Warhol rejected (Pittsburgh) has adopted him as their own.  The end result, a cityscape of Pittsburgh as viewed from the North Side.

24″ x 30″, oil on canvas

2017, on hold

Ceramic Face Bowls

In addition to painting, I sculpt in clay.  My work in this medium tends to consist of whimsical faces built into the side of hand-thrown bowls.  Decorations come from multiple clay bodies being built together; all work is unglazed.  Samples shown below are all approximately 6″ in diameter and 3″ high.

2017, stoneware, available

Hot Water Crust Meat Pie

April 28th, 2017

So, apparently it’s a British thing… I had never heard of a hot water crust until I started watching the Great British Baking Show.  But, in the first season, the contestants were challenged to do a 3-tiered pie and I was amazed to see them unmold pies from springform pans and stack them on top of each other for service, so I figured I’d give it a try.

I’ve got to say, I was somewhat uncertain about trying the hot water crust based on what Cook’s Illustrated has to say on the topic of this kind of crust: “When we compared a hot-water crust in several recipes…with our Foolproof Pie Dough… we understood why it might not have been eaten in the past. …[S]ome tasters called it “mealy”…. While a hot-water crust is simple to prepare and easy to work with, stick with our Foolproof Pie Dough if you want pastry worth eating.”

Having taken their opinion into account, though, I checked out a few British sources for an authentic recipe and settled on one from the BBC, though, of course, I didn’t follow it precisely.

  1. I rendered beef suet to use in the crust, because I was out of fat back to render for lard and also because I was making a beef pot pie.
  2. I cut the amount of suet used in half and substituted butter for the other half because I was concerned that 100% beef fat would be too much.
  3. I added some salt, hers, and spices to the recipe to add some flavor in (and perhaps battle against the shortcomings that Cook’s Illustrated perceived).
The end result was good.  It was a bit mealy, but I think that’s okay for a savory pie.  The crust baked up crisp on all sides, and the pie unmolded from the springform pan quite easily, straight from the oven.  The pieces held their form when cut, and the overall result was quite pleasing.
In case you’d like to give it a try, here’s the general recipe I followed.  SO sorry to give the figures in grams, but that’s the Brits (and the rest of the world) for you, they follow this crazy thing called the metric system that no one outside of a lab around here seems to have any use for :)
Pie Crust
  • 100g Beef Fat (or Lard)
  • 100g Butter
  • 220mL Water (I measured in grams on my scale)
  • 575g All Purpose Flour
  • 1 tsp Kosher Salt
  • Herbs (oregano, marjoram, thyme)
  • Spices (Aleppo Pepper, Garlic Powder, Paprika)
Filling
  • 4 quarts combined leftovers from a roast beef and roasted vegetable dinner, including about a cup of croutons, and moistened with a bit of tomato juice.
  • Next time I do this, I am leaning toward using braised, shredded meat instead of roasted meat.  Either will work just fine, though.
  1. Preheat oven to 375.
  2. Combine butter, animal fat, and water in a saucepan.  Bring to a boil.
  3. Meanwhile, measure dry ingredients into a large bowl.
  4. Pour hot water and fat mixture into the flour mixture.  Combine with a wooden spoon and then turn out onto a lightly floured surface.  Knead until smooth.
  5. Cut 1/4 of the dough off for the top crust, then roll the rest out into a large circle.  It will not roll like a normal pie crust, but rather has an almost bready consistency.  I had a bit of an issue getting it to pick up and transfer without tearing; I might try putting down a bit more flour before rolling next time.
  6. Transfer the bottom crust to a 24″ springform pan.  Lift the edges and fit it into the bottom of the dish all the way around.  Cur some scraps from the edges and press in to patch any holes that develop.
  7. Press your 4 quarts of filling into the pan.  Roll out the top crust, place on top, and fold the bottom crust up over the top and crimp closed to guard against leaks (Paul and Mary don’t want the pie to have any leaks).  Cut some vent holes in the top.  From what I can tell, one centrally placed hole is typical for the Brits; sometimes they will use a cinnamon stick as the vent (and, one would assume, to impart flavor into the pie as it bakes)
  8. Bake for about 30 minutes at 375, then drop the temperature to 350 and bake for another 60.
  9. When the crust has developed an attractive golden brown and the pie is baked all the way through, set it on a raised surface (such as a jar) and release it from the springform pan.  Slide onto a plate or cutting board for service.