Perfect Pie Crust

Yes, it's been almost a year. Life happens. A lot happens.

There's a big problem with making your own pie crusts. But first, let's look at what pie crust actually is.

Pie crust is a mixture of fat and flour, moistened with liquid. But what kind of fat you use, how you mix it, what kind of liquid, and what temperature everything is, is critical to the success of your pie crust.



First off, let's start with the proportions. There should be equal parts fat and flour, and just enough liquid to make the pie crust moist enough to roll out.

Second, the kind of fat: I have found that the absolutely best pie crust is made with equal parts of lard and butter. (Come on, you knew pie wasn't good for you!)

Third, the kind of flour--yes, it does make a difference! Gluten is what makes a pie crust tough, so you want to use the lowest-gluten flour you can find. Pastry flour is the best, and for the tastiest and most attractive crust, you want unbleached pastry flour or whole wheat pastry flour.

Fourth, the temperature of everything should be ice-cold. Yes, I keep my pastry flour in the freezer if I need the absolute best pie crust.

And now we come to how you mix the fat and flour. The most reliable way I have found is with two knives. Place the fat(s) in the sifted flour, and cut through the fats with one knife in each hand. You want bits of fat the size of lentils. The flour will stick to the outside of the bits of fat. Continue until you have the entire bowl of flour and fat in the appropriate-sized pieces.

When it comes to adding the liquid, most people use water, but I have discovered that replacing some or all of the water with 80 proof alcohol works the best. You can use anything you have lying around that goes with the flavor of the pie you are going to make: rum for peaches; whisky for pecans; vodka for savory pies. This also should be ice-cold. Put the mix in the refrigerator for a few minutes to keep it cool.

Finally, let's talk about equipment. For a crisp crust, you want a dark or glass pie pan. A pastry board and rolling pin you can refrigerate is good, or you can use marble.

Dust your pastry board with at little flour as possible (I use a tablespoon and spread it out evenly with my hand, and use the leftover to dust the pin lightly). Marble pastry boards are wonderful because they always stay cool! I also have a marble rolling pin, but my mother uses a hollow glass pin that she fills with water and freezes.

Without touching the pie crust with your hands, dump it out on the pastry board and roll to 1/8-inch thickness. Put your pie pan on top of the crust on the pastry board, and invert the crust into the pie pan. Press down to make sure there is no air between the crust and the pie pan.

For perfect crimping, you can use an iced fork, or make a "v" with one thumb and forefinger, and use a knife handle to push the crust into the "v."

If you need the pie crust to bake first, without browning, put a piece of parchment paper over the whole shebang and weight it down with a few glass marbles or river stones.

As always, some experimentation is useful. I have a number of tins which make very tiny pies, and I use these for experiments until I get a desirable result, and then I bake a few more examples to perfect the recipe.

Granny Smith Apples in a Raw Pie Crust Wally Eberhart

Should Food, Like Martinis, Be Dry?

Many recipes for meat and vegetables instruct the cook to pat the food dry before cooking. Is this really a necessary step?

As it turns out, patting food dry removes surface moisture (no surprise here). When food comes in contact with heat, any surface moisture converts to steam. Thus, two things happen. The food, instead of contacting the heat source directly, is first steamed before it cooks with another method, even if it is only for a few seconds. If you're steaming vegetables as the first step, then, you can probably ignore the "pat dry" instruction.

Breakfast Fry-Up Chaloner Woods

The second thing that happens is that, as the surface moisture converts to steam, the temperature surrounding the food is temporarily lowered. For some food, it may not matter--for baking bread, for example, we add steam to the hot oven to create that crunchy crust. But if you are sauteing, stir frying, deep frying, or grilling, you will want to pat your food as dry as possible to gain the most flavor from your cooking method.

For fruits and vegetables, the best method I have found for drying surface moisture is the reliable salad spinner. For meats, I use paper towels, wrap the meat up completely, and press until the paper towel stays dry on the outside (this may require a few tries). Yes, it's an extra step, but it means much more flavorful and better-cooked food!

What Our Grandmothers Didn't Know They Knew

 Most of us who are old enough, remember our grandmothers putting baking soda in with green beans, and being served those amazingly bright green vegetables. Nothing ever tasted quite the same afterwards. Well, that wasn't just our perceptions--that is food chemistry, and it comes about because of the chemical reactions between baking soda and sulfur compounds.

Now many foods have sulfur compounds, which add quite a bit to flavour: in eggs, cabbages and other cruciferous vegetables, olive oil, coffee, and wine, just to name a very few foods, and those sulfur compounds take multiple forms. But baking soda breaks those sulfurous bonds and modifies the flavour of food. So if you don't like a certain food, in all probability it is the sulfur compounds that are responsible, and it is possible, therefore, to significantly alter the flavour of food (for better or worse) by using baking soda.

So I challenge all my readers: if you are interested in food chemistry, add a few grains of baking soda to your food over the next few weeks, and carefully observe and increase and decrease the amount of baking soda and note the results. Those dishes you didn't like before might take on new life, and even the ones you already like might benefit. Of course, if you try this and prefer the original, you will also benefit, because you can avoid other primarily basic ingredients, and stick to the more acidic ingredients in dishes that rely on sulfurous compounds for their flavour. By understanding the role of sulfurous compounds in food and flavour, you can make that understanding work to your advantage in coming up with the best possible taste for your cooking!

Hypocras

What with so much going on, I haven't had much time to devote to food chemistry or pattern recipes. My apologies, and to make up for it, here's an actual recipe! Soon I should be back to regular posting routines, but sometimes life just happens!

Hypocras is a medieval drink, dating from the days when the Roman Catholic Popes moved to Avignon. This is a refreshing and hearty wine punch which can be served either hot or cold, and will certainly add flair to a Medieval- or Renaissance-themed party!

Ingredients:
Dry Red Wine (Syrah or a mixture containing Syrah and Cabernet is best--you want rich tannins)
Honey, Brown Sugar, Sugar, or any other sweetener
Cinnamon
Ginger
Galangal
Clove
Grains of Paradise
Nutmeg
Mace (the spice)
Cardamom
Black pepper



Pour the wine into a heatproof dish with a tight lid that can later be placed in the refrigerator. Add spices and sugar or honey, and mix with a wooden spoon until the honey or sugar is completely dissolved. Cover and leave to sit in a cool place overnight. The next day, taste it. If it's too sweet or too spicy, add more wine. If it's not sweet or spicy enough, add more sugar or spices. Reseal and leave overnight. The next day, filter your wine by pouring it through a towel. (The original medieval recipe specifies filtering it nine times through a clean sock.) Seal tightly and keep in a cool, dark place. As with other wines, once you open it, try to drink it within a week. Serve hot or cold.

• For a shortcut, most pumpkin pie spice mixes contain ginger, cloves, cinnamon, nutmeg, and allspice.
• Medieval recipes do not have precise measurements, so start with a small quantity until you work out the correct proportions to suit your taste. I like mine very spicy! 

Herbs, Part 4

Without a doubt, I'm a big fan of fresh herbs. I grow them myself, not only on my own property but at my friends' and neighbours' houses, too. And always people ask me, "How do you use all those herbs?"

One of my favourite ways to use herbs is infusions. Whether I infuse them in water (to make tea), in cream (to make sauces or custards); in stock (to make soups or gravies); in liquor, or in just about any liquid, herbs add a great kick to just about anything.

Need to spice up a recipe? Simple. A day or so before you make it, look at the recipe (you have to look at it anyway, before you go to the store, right?) and see what liquid it calls for. Okay, now take that liquid and measure it out. Stick some fresh herbs in it and put that liquid in the fridge. Now when you go to make that recipe, simply pick out the herbs with a tweezers and voilà! You've just found a way to use those fresh herbs!

Better Living Through Chemistry

Yes, that was the slogan I grew up with, not only because I was a child in the 1960s, but because my parents were both well-versed in chemistry. Although I didn't do particularly well in chemistry class because of the valences, I did understand a lot of what I did study.

This past two weeks I have had several opportunities to see chemistry at work in the kitchen, both unexpected. The first was when I decided to soak my burner pans. Mine (I thought) were fairly clean, so I dumped them in the sink, added some warm water and dishwashing detergent, and let them soak overnight.

The results were impressive--so impressive that I've been letting them soak for two weeks and will probably let them soak for another. You see, while I live with chemistry every day, I never really believed in chemistry until I saw the grease dissolve even from spots that were invisible to the naked eye. But I would wake up in the morning, go into the kitchen, and see dissolved grease from those invisible spots spread out around the spot like a halo. And the other thing I learned from this experience was that baked-on grease smells terrible, and that smell gets into your food. And I know this because when I put the burner pans back on the stove, the food tasted much cleaner when I cooked it the next time.

Chemical reactions take time, but the results are real and consistent. Have faith that the right reactions will occur, and soak your burner pans overnight once a week!

  The second time I had a chance to really watch chemistry at work was when, as it turned cold, I actually went to the trouble of mulling wine. Most of the time, I admit, I'm lazy, and I just heat the wine, either on the stove top (be sure to unplug your carbon monoxide detector first; this is the voice of experience), or in the microwave. But mulling actually requires a poker (or other suitable piece of metal) to be heated red-hot and plunged into the wine or other beverage to warm it. (Again, the voice of experience: the wine or beer will foam up, so leave plenty of room at the top of your cup!) The difference was so extraordinary I could not believe it. You see, when you heat wine another way, caramelization does not take place, so you have less flavor because there's not the "browning" reaction such as there is with intense heat.

If you decide to try mulling, buy and reserve a separate poker for this. Otherwise you'll end up with ashes in your drink (not the voice of experience here. I figured this out for myself first).

Herbs, Part 3

Last week we discussed herbal sugars: this week we're going to talk about herb salts. Just like sugar, salt can be infused with flavours, too. Depending on the size of the salt crystals, this may take quite a bit longer but again, the flavour results are well worth the wait!

Galvanised Metal Pot with Lemon Thyme Set in Gravel with Shells Linda Burgess

Infusing salt works exactly the same way as infusing sugar, except the results may take much longer (up to a year). This is because the salt compound does not react with the plant essential oils in the same fashion that sugar reacts to them (remember that all plants contain sugar, and therefore plant oils and sugars are natural friends).  However, herb-infused salts are well worth the wait.

Again, we need to take into account the interplay between sweet and savoury, and their exchanges here. So, for an experiment, you might try making a small amount of cinnamon salt. What to do with it? How about sprinkling it over sweet potatoes, brushed with olive oil, walnut oil, hazelnut oil, or grapeseed oil and roasted in the oven? Now, what can you make with vanilla salt? Mint salt (it's not as strange as it sounds, as you've probably eaten mint jelly with lamb)? Again, the list is limited only by your imagination. Later on we'll get into baking some more, and then we'll be using some of these herb salts in cakes and other goodies.

In the meantime, try using these herbs to infuse salt (remember they will take a while to perfume the salt), and then we will see the results in a few months. You'll be amazed at the flavour layers you can achieve with a few infusions!