Dutch Apple Pie

5 Dec

For a very long time, I thought I had come up with the greatest pie dough recipe I’d ever had the pleasure of working with, and subsequently eating.  It was flaky, it behaved well, and the end product was always a delight.  My pie dough recipe had a squeeze of lemon juice in it, which aided the goal of keeping the gluten in the flour undeveloped and, as an end result, the dough never turned out tough.  My only complaint, small as it was, was that the dough never really developed the dozens of flaky layers that I always wanted to see in my pie dough.  Sure, there were layers of crisp flakiness, but not innumerable layers (like I said, small complaint).

Last Thanksgiving, I decided to try out a different pie dough.  Turning to my bible of all things pastry, I settled on using Tartine’s flaky tart dough, an unsweetened, highly buttery dough that I already knew I absolutely loved in savory applications.  Now, here comes the part where I instruct you all to recite with me the discovery I made about this dough when used in a pie, because, by now, you all know what I am going to say when it comes to Tartine and the food it produces: This, my friends, is the greatest pie dough in all the land.

So buttery, so simple to work with, and so unbelievably flaky, this is the very pie dough I have been looking for my entire life.  The best part is, there is no secret to the dough.  There are four ingredients, there is a standard mixing method, and then there is a nice long resting period in both the refrigerator and the freezer.  If I were to really take a stab at what I think makes this dough so fantastic, I’d have to go with three possible suspects.

First of all, the proportion of butter to flour is marginally larger than my former favorite recipe, and it is absolutely perfect.  Second, giving the dough a long resting period in the refrigerator before rolling it out and forming it seems to add a particularly fine texture to the dough, as you are allowing the butter, water, and flour to adhere to one another better without coaxing them along with your hands or a food processor and working the flour’s gluten too long, thus making the dough tough.  A well-chilled dough also allows the small, pea-sized chunks of butter to firm up slightly, which makes the flour and water form tiny little pockets around the butter pieces, which results in a super tender and flaky crust when baked.  I rested this pie dough in the refrigerator overnight and it was simply dreamy.

Third: no sugar.  No sugar.  So simple, right?  For some reason I always thought that I had to add a tiny shot of sugar to my sweet pie and tart dough, but, now that I think of it, that makes absolutely no sense.  If you pie’s filling is going to be sweetened, why gild the lily and sweeten up your dough as well? The lack of sugar in this dough allows the flavor of the butter to really shine in a glorious and uncomplicated way, which bodes well for the dough’s richly sweet filling.

Which brings me, finally, to the rest of the recipe.  A hybrid of a Cook’s Illustrated recipe and what I remember about the Dutch apple pie at the restaurant where I worked as a teenager (which called the pie a French apple pie, as there seems to be quite a bit of overlap concerning what people consider a French apple pie and a Dutch apple pie), the pie I ended up making is stuffed with sautéed tart apples and topped with a hearty, crumbly, pecan-crunchy lid.  When baked, the crisp topping settles into the nooks and crannies left open by the baking apples, leaving no space unoccupied by tasty, cinnamon-laden glory.  At the risk of making two loud proclamations in one post, dare I say that this apple pie is the best apple pie I’ve ever had?  For now, yes.  But only time will tell if its throne will one day be conquered.  Tartine, it’s your move.

Flaky Tart and Pie Dough

From Tartine

1 teaspoon salt

2/3 cup (5 ½ ounces) very cold ice water

3 cups plus 2 tablespoons (1 pound) unbleached all-purpose flour

1 cup plus 5 tablespoons (10 ½ ounces) very cold unsalted butter

In a small bowl, add the salt to the water and stir to dissolve.  Place in the freezer to keep super cold until ready to use.

Place the flour in the bowl of a food processor, or in a large bowl.  Cut the butter into 1-inch pieces, then scatter over the flour.  If using a food processor, pulse the mixture briefly until it forms into large crumbs and some of the pieces of butter remain pea-sized.  If making the dough by hand, cut the butter into the dough using a pastry cutter.  You will want the dough to have the same crumb-like look with some large pea-sized chunks of butter throughout.

Drizzle the salt and water mixture over the dough and, if using a food processor, pulse until the dough comes together into a ball but is not completely smooth.  You should still see visible butter chunks.  If mixing the dough by hand, drizzle the salt and water mixture over the dough while tossing with a fork.  The dough should come together in a shaggy mass.  Gently mix the dough together until it comes together in a ball but is not completely smooth.  As with the food processor dough, you should still see visible butter chunks.

Divide the dough into 2 equal balls on a lightly floured surface.  Shape each ball into a disk about 1 inch thick.  Wrap each disk in plastic wrap and refrigerate at least 2 hours, preferably overnight.

Makes 2 9-inch or 10-inch tart or pie shells, enough for 2 single-crust pies or tarts, or 1 double-crust pie.

Dutch Apple Pie

I have seen many apple pie recipes that call for a mix of tart and sweet apples, and I never understand why.  Tart apples, in addition to holding their shape so much better than sweet apples, provide the best flavor balance for the sweetness of a pie’s sugar and spice.  I know I tend to err on the side of less sweetened desserts these days, but, trust me, tart apples are the way to go with this recipe, or any other apple pie recipe, for that matter.

You will need:

Dough for 1 single-crust pie shell

Streusel

1 cup (5 ounces) unbleached all-purpose flour

1/3 cup (2 1/3 ounces) granulated sugar

1/3 cup packed (2 1/3 ounces) light brown sugar

¼ cup pecans, chopped medium-fine

pinch of salt

6 tablespoons (¾ stick) unsalted butter, melted and cooled

Filling

2 tablespoons unsalted butter

4 pounds firm tart apples (I used Granny Smith, the tartest, firmest apples I know), peeled, cored, and slice ¼ inch thick

¼ cup (1 ¾ ounces) granulated sugar

½ teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/8 teaspoon salt

½ cup heavy cream

Parbake the crust:

On a lightly floured surface, roll out your disk of chilled pie dough into a circle about 1 ½ inches larger than your 9-inch pie dish.  Gently transfer the dough to the pie dish, easing it into the bottom and sides, and pressing gently into place.  Using a sharp knife, trim the dough so it hangs over the pie dish by ½ inch, or, using your fingers, tuck the scraggly edges of the dough under itself and lightly press to adhere.  Using your fingers, crimp the edges of the dough to make a fluted edges, or using the tines of a fork, press the edges of the dough to flatted it against the rim of the dish.  Place the formed dough in the freezer for 30 minutes to 1 hour (this ensures the flakiest dough possible).

While the dough is chilling, preheat the oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit and adjust an oven rack to the middle position.

When the dough is chilled and the oven preheated, line the chilled crust with a double layer of foil and fill with pie weights.  Bake until the pie dough looks dry and is light in color, 25 to 30 minutes.  Transfer the pie plate to a wire rack and remove the weights and foil.  With the oven still heated to 375 degrees, adjust an oven rack to the lowest position, and place a foil-lined baking sheet on the rack.

Make the Streusel:

In a medium bowl, mix together the flour, sugars, pecans and salt.  Drizzle with the melted butter, and stir the streusel with a fork until roughly combined.  Set aside.

Make the Filling:

Melt the butter in a large Dutch oven over medium-high heat.  Stir in the apples, cinnamon, sugar, and salt.  Cover and cook, stirring occasionally, for about 10 to 12 minutes, until the apples have just started to soften, and some of the apples have just begun to break down.

Set a large bowl under a colander.  Pour the cooked apples into the colander, allowing the juice to thoroughly drain into the large bowl set underneath.  In a small saucepan, combine the drained juice from the bowl with the heavy cream.  Cook over medium-high heat until thick and reduced by roughly half, about 3 minutes.

Spread the apples into the parbaked pie crust.  Drizzle with the reduced cream mixture.  Sprinkle the streusel evenly over the top (there will be some large pieces of streusel and some small pieces—this is exactly what you want, as the variation in texture makes for a great bite).  Place the pie on the heated baking sheet and bake until the crust and streusel have browned, about 25 minutes.  Allow the pie to cool on a wire rack until the filling has set, about 2 hours.

Serve slightly warm or at room temperature.

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Roasted Portobello Mushroom Caps with Apple Pecan Stuffing and Caramelized Onion Mushroom Gravy

2 Dec

Recently it occurred to me that when I entered (and subsequently lost) that cooking contest, lo those many weeks ago, I created a recipe that I came to love so much, I just don’t think it would be right to let the recipe languish on the contest’s website.  I don’t think it is against the contest’s rules to take my recipe back, so, if nobody objects, I believe I will.

My hunch is that, if you never mention its absence, nobody will even think to bemoan the lack of meat in this meal.  It really is that fulfilling, and in a way that I think all vegetarian and vegan food should be.  I am not making any substitutions for meat here, I am simply celebrating and building upon what these fresh, natural ingredients have to offer.  No meat required.

The best kind of vegetarian and vegan food, I think, is the type that doesn’t need to be specified as being either.  When you eat something delicious, it should just be delicious, plain and simple, no matter if you eat beef steaks or tofu cakes (or both).  When I was developing this recipe for stuffed portobello mushroom caps, one of my main goals was to make this a dish that could be set upon a big holiday table and entice every single person at that table, omnivore, herbivore, or what have you.  Portobello mushrooms, with their undeniably meaty texture, provide a satisfying meatiness for those who call for such with their meals.  Topped with sautéed cubes of artisan bread, savory apple bits, and crisp, flavorful pecans, you can easily make a main dish out of this.  Add in a rich, thick gravy of caramelized onions, sautéed mushrooms, and heavenly mushroom stock, and the celebratory meal is made complete.

Roasted Portobello Mushroom Caps with Apple Pecan Stuffing

2 large Portobello mushrooms, scrubbed clean

3 tablespoons olive oil, divided

1 ½ cups crusty bread cubes, about ½ inch in diameter

¼ cup finely diced onion

¾ cup chopped, peeled apple pieces, about ¼ inch in diameter

1 teaspoon chopped fresh sage

1 teaspoon chopped fresh Italian parsley

¼ cup mushroom broth (if you can’t find any, vegetable stock will do nicely)

¼ cup roughly chopped pecans

salt and pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit.  Lightly oil a medium-sized baking dish and set aside.

Remove stems from scrubbed Portobello mushrooms and reserve stems to use later.  Using a spoon, gently scrape out the gills from the underside of each mushroom cap.  Lightly brush both the top and bottom of each cap with olive oil and set aside.

In a medium skillet, heat 2 tablespoons olive oil over medium heat.  When oil is hot, add bread cubes and sauté until crisp and browned, about 4-5 minutes.  Remove bread cubes from pan and set aside.

In the same skillet, heat remaining 1 tablespoon of oil over medium-low heat.  When oil is hot, add onions.  Cook onions, stirring occasionally, until softened and just beginning to brown at edges, about 3 minutes.  Add chopped apples, stirring and sautéing until lightly browned and just beginning to soften, 4-5 minutes.

Add bread cubes back into skillet and stir to combine.  Reduce heat to low and add sage, parsley, and mushroom broth, stirring to combine.  When broth has been absorbed, about 1-2 minutes, remove skillet from heat and stir in pecans.  Add salt and pepper to taste.

Fill each mushroom cap with stuffing, dividing as evenly as possible.  The stuffing will mound up quite a bit.  Place stuffed mushrooms in prepared baking dish, and roast in oven for 25-30 minutes, until mushrooms have darkened a bit and the stuffing has become quite crisp on top.

Serve with caramelized onion mushroom gravy.  Serves 2 as a main dish, 4 as a side dish.

Caramelized Onion Mushroom Gravy

2 tablespoons olive oil

½ small yellow onion, sliced into thin ribs

reserved stems from 2 portobello mushrooms, chopped medium-fine

½ teaspoon balsamic vinegar

1 tablespoon unbleached all-purpose flour

2 cups mushroom broth (if you can’t find any, vegetable stock will do nicely)

½ teaspoon chopped fresh sage

½ teaspoon chopped fresh Italian parsley

salt and pepper to taste

In a large skillet, heat olive oil over low heat.  Add onions, and slowly caramelize over low heat, 15-20 minutes, stirring frequently.  When onions are soft, brown, and caramelized, add chopped mushrooms.  Cook, stirring frequently, until mushrooms have softened and darkened, 2-3 minutes.  Add balsamic vinegar, and stir to incorporate until vinegar has been absorbed, about 1 minute.

Move onions and mushrooms to the edges of the skillet, leaving an open space in the middle.  Turn heat up to medium.  Sprinkle flour in the open space in the middle of the skillet, and cook flour, stirring frequently, until browned, 3-4 minutes.  Slowly whisk in mushroom broth, incorporating the broth and flour into the onions and mushrooms and whisking to eliminate any lumps of flour that might initially form.  Simmer over medium heat, whisking frequently, until gravy thickens, about 5 minutes.  Add sage and parsley and whisk to incorporate.  Add salt and pepper to taste.

Makes a tad more than 1 1/2 cups of gravy.

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Crisp Spiced Nuts and Kicking Off the Holidays

30 Nov

Many years ago, I worked in the book industry.  Part of my job entailed getting to know as-yet-unpublished books, then promoting them as I (read: my employer and the publisher) saw fit.  When you receive an advance copy of a book that is not yet published, you tend to get a slightly different view of the book than most of the other people who later read the book will receive.  Sometimes your advance copy arrives in the form of a simple advance reader, a paperback copy of the book with a mostly spot-on version of the to-be published cover and words contained within. You might also receive an uncorrected proof of the book, meaning a copy of the book that is intact as a story, but not yet fully combed over by its editors and proofreaders (yes, those are two very different jobs) in order to purge the book of slight inconsistencies or errors.  If you are truly ensconced in the game, you might get your hands on a manuscript of a book, which could come in a form of a veritable ream of paper that has either been bound with glue and given a makeshift cover (fancy), stuck into a 3-ring binder (medium fancy), or neatly filed away in a padded manila envelope (not so fancy).

What can be found in any of these copies of pre-published books is sometimes extremely memorable, though more often than not you tend to forget what you’ve seen in them once the final, published version of a book comes out.  Once I read an advance copy of a book that boasted an entire chapter that ended up being removed from its final form.  Sometimes, if you are really paying attention, you can even notice certain sentences or phrases that ended up being altered.

Such was the case for one book that came out over a decade ago and happened to catch my fancy.*  In one particularly memorable paragraph, there reads an opening statement meant to convey a particular person’s penchant for Christmas.  The published line ended up reading, “Our mother was a Christmas extremist.”  To the point, for sure, but the opening sentence in the advance copy I read months before the book came out had me laughing out loud.  The original opening sentence?  “Our mother was a Christmas crackhead.”

Now, I can see why an editor would want someone to change that line.  If you are coming from the standpoint of someone who thinks you can convey that thought in a more conventional manner, with words that are perhaps not as hilariously pithy (to some, perhaps not to others), then sure, by all means, there is a case for changing the last word.  But coming from a strictly deadpan comedic standpoint, the original line is a total keeper.  To this day, I still remember that original sentence.  Every year, right around December, it never fails to pop into my head.  And the reason is because I, too, am a total Christmas crackhead.

I freaking love Christmas.  I love Christmas baking.  I love Christmas lights.  I love Christmas trees.  I love seeing throngs of people walking around wearing scarves and wool coats and complaining about the crowds of people pulsing around them.  I love Christmas display windows, I love Christmas toy drives, I love thinking up as many reasons as I can to surprise someone with Christmas treats.  See what I mean?  Total Christmas crackhead.

Which brings me to the point of this whole post.  My friends, have I got some Christmas recipes for you.  Using Christmas as my excuse, I am here to pummel you with recipe after recipe for the holiday season.  You want pies?  There will be pies.  Tarts?  Yes.  Snacks?  Oh, yes.  It is my sole intention to completely exhaust your kitchen this Christmas season, and to share with you all my complete and utter devotion to the joys of Christmas as it relates to your kitchen.  And your belly.

To start things off, I’ve got this superb recipe for crisp spiced nuts.  With their spicy cayenne kick and savory-sweet glaze, they not only make a perfect snack to nibble with a glass of wine or a cocktail, but, portioned out and dressed up in a nice gift box or jar, they make a fantastic host or hostess gift.  Keep in mind, however, that if you intend to share these nuts, you’d better start giving them away as soon as you possibly can after making them.  Wait too long, and you are likely to end up eating them all yourself, such is the sheer intensity of their tasty allure.  I have been known to (inadvisably) eat these for breakfast.  While I can’t say it was the best decision I ever made, I also can’t admit to completely regretting it, since, god help me, it was a mighty delicious breakfast while it lasted.

*I am really sorry, but I am fairly certain that I would upset someone by revealing which books this is.  The line was changed for a reason, so I probably shouldn’t be waxing nostalgic about something not meant to see the light of day.  I do not wish to cause any hurt feelings.

Crisp Spiced Nuts

(a recipe from my husband’s family)

2 large egg whites

1 teaspoon flaky sea salt

¾ cup sugar

2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce

2 tablespoons sweet Hungarian paprika

1 to 2 teaspoons cayenne pepper (the determined amount will depend a lot on the heat of your cayenne pepper—ours is quite hot, so I tend to use 1 heaping teaspoon, which provides enough heat to flavor the nuts without making me uncomfortable while I eat them)

4 ½ cups nuts (I like to use a mix of almonds, hazelnuts, and pecans)

¾ stick (6 tablespoons) unsalted butter, melted and cooled.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.

In a large bowl, beat egg whites until very foamy.  Gradually beat in sugar, Worcestershire, paprika, salt, and cayenne.  Stir in nuts and melted butter.

Spread nuts in a single layer on a large baking sheet or roasting pan.  Bake in middle of oven, stirring every 10 minutes, until the nuts become crisp when cooled, about 25-40 minutes.  To test a nut for crispness, carefully remove it from the oven and allow it to cool slightly.  The nut’s glaze should turn firm and crisp after 2 or 3 minutes.

Remove nuts from oven when they still appear sticky, but a tested nut confirms that the glaze will turn crisp when cooled.  Spread the nuts on a sheet of foil to cool, separating the nuts as much as possible so they don’t harden into big clumps.

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