Team Cook November - Pie 🥧

[captainlee]

Not the correct pie,but it's a pie.. Real pie will be revealed Thanksgiving.

[TripleB]

My wife LOVES chicken/turkey pot pies. Always have a Marie Calendar's chicken pot pie in the freezer.

[barelfly]

I’ll post up at Thanksgiving! I use a gluten free recipe form Cup4Cup that works so well, and will post that for anyone that may need a GF recipe.

[SheilaAnn]

Cup4cup is a really good product. IIRC it’s a Thomas Keller product, yes?

[barelfly]

SheilaAnn - I did not know that! Quick search and I see it was developed at The French Laundry! Pretty cool!!!

[tamidw]

Hmm, I used to make pie crust from scratch all the time, then came along the refrigerated crusts that are so easy. Don’t taste as good, but still decent. I have lots of apples I need to use up and the kid has been requesting an apple pie. 🤔

[yakima]

I plan to use Kenji's dough recipe that RonB posted. In doing a steak & kidney savory pie with double crust, I am leaning to prebaking it a bit, in order to crisp it up before the stew like filling goes in. Does this make sense?

[SheilaAnn]

It does make sense!

[Carolyn]

Louisiana/Nachitoches Meat Pies

Made with an Empanada crust recipe I found online. Beef and Pork mixture with yellow onions, celery, red bell pepper, green onion, and spices.
The filling was good. The crust was not great, which is not surprising because I rarely make dough.

[LA Pork Butt]

Carolyn you guessed it. We are meeting my wife’s three brothers and their wives. I think I’ll sample every variety.

[LA Pork Butt]

We just returned from Natchitoches and were really disappointed in the meat Pies at Laysone’s. We asked around town as to where to get the best meat pies and were told The French Market Express, and they were right. These were head and shoulders better than Laysone’s. They were a little smaller but we’ll worth it.

[Carolyn]

LA Pork Butt I have heard mixed reviews of Lasyone's. Glad you found some good ones. It sure would have been a disappointing trip if you had only bad meat pies.

[yakima]

Pie crust day. Made filling yesterday. It has nicely gelatinized, so do not plan to blind bake. Dough now resting.
Had a minor dust up making dough, per Kenji's recipe. Used a blender, had to switch to food processor. I don't use either much (but more than an Instant Pot!). Previously, I could not have told you which was which.

Yesterday I went down the pie crust rabbit hole on Serious Eats. It's as bad as religion; many ways to get to the same result.

[Mosca]

Did my crust, all the way up to chillin’ in the fridge. I’ll make the pie after the game.

[yakima]

In the oven. It ain't purdy.

Our BD is doing a good job of introducing/reinforcing basic skills.
But, she has not yet gotten to skinning Rocky Mountain Oysters.

[yakima]

I did take a couple pics. Will see if I have the patience to post them.

[SheilaAnn]

yakima while I personally have not prepped the, I watched it done. They were delicious sautéed in garlic butter!

[Mosca]

I like to take pix and post process. So there will probably be a couple related posts due to the pic limit.

First, I made the dough, and put it in the fridge while the early games were on. I made 2 crusts, one for top and one for bottom:

170g (1.25c) all purpose flour
12g (1T) sugar
1g (.25t) salt
113g (.5c) frozen unsalted butter
4T cold water
1T vodka

Spin the dry stuff to mix it,


cube and add the butter,


Pulse that butter a couple times, then add the liquid and give a few quick pulses to get this


Dump that onto a sheet of plastic wrap


Fold it into a disc and pop it in the fridge. There are supposed to be those butter globs in there, they melt and make the flakes.

[tamidw]

Are the amounts for the ingredients above for 1 crust or 2?

[Alan Brice]

tamidw two. Have fun. Sorry, when I read, "I made two crusts, one for the bottom n one for the top." I musta got cornfused.

[Mosca]

tamidw that is for one crust.

[Mosca]

Then watch football for a couple-three hours. Then, build a pie. Heat the oven to 425°.

2.5lbs mixed apples
juice of 1 lemon
1 stick unsalted butter
3T flour
1.5t cinnamon
.25c water
1c sugar
1 egg + 1T water, for egg wash


I peeled and cut 8 apples (3 SugarBee, 3 SweeTango, and 2 Macintosh), and squeezed some lemon juice on them.


I made a thin roux, 1 stick of butter and 3T of flour


I added the sugar, the cinnamon, the water, and the apples, and reduced that.



While that was reducing, I rolled out the pie crust


If you roll it around the rolling pin, it is easy to get it into the pie plate


Dumped the apples and reduced syrup into the crust,


Top It with the other crust, vent it, and then apply the egg wash


Bake it at 425° for 15-20 minutes. Then lower the oven to 350° and bake to an internal of 200°, about 45 more minutes. You get… a pie. This is actually a pretty damn good pie.

[tamidw]

Crust looks amazing! I’ve always just mixed the cinnamon/sugar into apples then put into pie crust and cook. I bet cooking like you did gets more caramelization with the sauce produced. Yum!

[Mosca]

tamidw I had so much filling, that’s why I reduced it first; it wouldn’t fit! The next time I’ll use less apples. And I wouldn’t use an egg wash on the upper crust.

[jayjordan]

I'd eat that! Hot from the oven with a scoop of Blue Bell Vanilla on top.

[Alan Brice]

I read abt it but I did not understand the reason for the Vodka. Any help?

[Mosca]

I read that it adds moisture without developing gluten, which creates a flakier crust. I saw recipes that called for as much as 50/50 water and vodka; I hedged my bet and did 80/20.

[Alan Brice]

Mosca I wonder if it would work with any liquor?

[Mosca]

I read something that said it does, but I didn’t want to experiment. It said any 80 proof liquor….

And the cheapest vodka. But my take is that it’s only a couple tablespoonsful, and then you’re left with either a bottle of cheap vodka or a bottle of good vodka. So I used the good stuff.

[Mosca]

Today I’ll pick up a pint of ice cream, and make some whipped cream for it. That’s way too much pie for two old people, it is EXTREMELY deep dish:



but I’ll figure out something.

[klflowers]

Luckily my sister is making sweet potato pie for Thanksgiving. I'll post a pic of it. I have never had the urge to make any kind of pie

[Panhead John]

+1 My girlfriend Marie Callender makes all my pies for me.

[yakima]

My British steak and kidney pie turned out very well last nite. Double crust. Not blind baked. 3 to 1 ratio of chuck steak to beef kidney. Soaked kidneys in milk for awhile to reduce their intensity. Used Kenji's pie crust recipe. The filling was based upon a Spruce Eats recipe, The Ultimate Steak and Kidney Pie. It called for carrots; mine were bad so they got pitched. I used the amount of beef stock called for, but thought it was too soupy (perhaps due to lack of carrots) so I added about 2 teaspoons of corn starch. After chilling overnite the filling was nicely gelatinized.

My wife and I both thought the pie was excellent. Beforehand she had been quite dubious about the kidneys.

Good call BD. Pushed me way out of my comfort zone.

[yakima]

Re the kidneys. I asked the guy at the meat market if he had beef kidneys. He went to the freezer and pulled out a box, about 18x18 inches and 12 deep, holding a solid block of kidneys. I asked for 3 lbs. Using a band saw on that big block, he sawed off 3.08 lbs. Amazing.

[bbqLuv]

Oh My, left over pie

[Alan Brice]

Not in my house!
Just has not been eaten, yet.