(Photo courtesy of Joy)
For those of you who don’t know about Pi Day, March 14 can be written as 3.14, which is pi. Therefore, March 14 is Pi Day. Also, pi sounds like pie, so we celebrate Pi Day by eating pie. But wait, there’s more. This year, Pi Day falls on a Saturday. So I figured, all the stars are aligned, and this year, I’m going to bake a pie and have a pie eating party at my place. Fruit pie or savory pie? Why not both? It’ll be a Double Pie Pi Day, a Pi Day Pie-thon, if you will.
For the apple pie, I started with the crust and filling recipe from Sizzleworks, and eventually, I made enough tweaks to the apple pie filling that I’m willing to call it my own. The chicken pot pie recipe, though, I was inspired by an Emeril recipe from a long time ago, but I re-wrote the recipe from first principles and my own preferences. The only thing it has in common with Emeril’s recipe is they both have shiitake mushrooms.
In the traditional manner, I’ll show you the recipe(s) first, after the cut, then jump into the write-up.
Pie Crust
This recipe is entirely adapted from Sizzleworks. Because pie crusts are frickin’ hard, and I haven’t had the time or interest to develop my own.
Ingredients
330g all purpose flour
1 tsp white sugar
1 tsp kosher salt
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter
1/4 cup + 1 Tbsp cold water
1/4 cup cold vodka
Instructions
- Mix together flour, sugar, and salt in a large bowl (at least 2.5 qt).
- Coat butter in flour and use a grater to grate butter into the flour.
- Mix flour with butter until butter is evenly distributed. Break up large blocks of butter so that remaining butter blocks are pea-sized or smaller.
- Add water in 6-8 small portions, folding the water into the flour-butter mixture with a spatula.
- Form dough into a ball. Cut the ball in half and separate into two discs. Wrap the discs in plastic wrap.
- Refridgerate the dough for at least 30 min, preferably overnight.
- Optionally: Freeze the dough if you’re not using it within the next 1-2 days.
Makes enough pie dough for a top and bottom crust on a 9-inch pie.
Note: After working with this recipe for a few times, I’ve noticed I get a lot of dry bits. I think I need to increase the amount of liquid.
Apple Pie
This also started as a Sizzleworks recipe. Eventually, I adapted it to making the pie filling on the stovetop. See the writeup below for more details.
Ingredients
2 granny smith apples
4 gala apples
2 Tbsp freshly squeezed lemon juice
2 Tbsp butter
pinch salt
50g brown sugar
1 Tbsp corn starch
1 Tbsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
1/4 cup apple cider
Instructions
- Chop apples into 1/2 inch cubes and immediately toss apples in a large mixing bowl (at least 4 qt) with the lemon juice. (This will prevent the apples from oxidizing.)
- In a large stockpot, melt butter over medium heat. Add the chopped apples and a pinch of salt.
- Let apples reduce in the stockpot, covered, for about 30 min. Stir every 5 minutes or so.
- While apples are reducing, make a slurry of the sugar, corn starch, cinnamon, nutmeg, and apple cider.
- When apples have reduced and have become soft, stir in the slurry. Let simmer for another minute. Then, remove apples from heat.
- Assemble pie (see instructions below).
- Bake at 350 F for 45 min.
- Let cool for at least 30 min before serving.
- If storing for long term use, let cool for at least hours. Then store covered at room temperature for 2-3 days. Or freeze for longer term storage.
Makes 1 9-inch apple pie.
In case you’re curious, I used Angry Orchard Cinnful Apple Cider.
Chicken Pot Pie
This is a Dwayne original.
Ingredients
3 to 4 oz thick-cut bacon (as many slices as you can fit on a 12-inch saute pan)
1 to 1.5 lb chicken thighs
1/2 yellow onion, chopped in 1/2 inch pieces
1 carrots, peeled and chopped in 1/2 inch pieces
4 oz shiitake mushrooms, chopped in 1/2 inch pieces
3 oz frozen peas
2 cloves garlic, minced
pinch of kosher salt
70g flour
2 cups Stock
1/4 cup Madeira
1/4 cup Cream
2 oz grated or shredded Parmesan
To taste:
Soy Sauce
Kitchen Bouquet
Kosher salt
White Pepper
Frank’s RedHot
Instructions
- Blanch peas for about 2 min. (Boil water, add frozen peas, cook for 2 min, immediately remove peas from water and place in a cold water bath.)
- Poach chicken in stock over medium-high heat for 5 min each side. Remove chicken from pan and set chicken and stock aside (separately).
- In a clean 12-inch frying pan, fry the bacon on medium-hight heat for 30 seconds each side. Remove bacon from pan and set aside. Note that by the time you’re done flipping the bacon, it may already be time to remove the bacon from the pan.
- On the same frying pan, saute the carrots with a pinch of salt on low heat, covered, stirring occasionally, until soft, about 10 min.
- Add the onions, mushrooms, garlic, and a pinch of salt to the pan. Saute until onions are soft and mushrooms are cooked, about another 10 min, covered, stirring occasionally.
- While veggies are cooking, chop the chicken and the bacon.
- Add the flour and stir for about a minute.
- Add stock, cream, and wine. Bring to a simmer on high heat. Filling should thicken up immediately.
- Lower to medium heat. Add chicken, bacon, and peas.
- Melt in the parmesan.
- Lower heat and season with soy sauce, kitchen bouquet, salt, pepper, and Frank’s to taste.
- Assemble pie (see instructions below).
- Bake at 350 F for 1 hr.
- Let cool, partly covered in foil, for 30 minute. Then serve.
Serves 6.
Oh also, the cast photo.
Pie Assembly
Ingredients
pie dough (from above)
Egg Wash:
1 egg
1 tsp water
1 pinch salt
optional: 1 pinch white sugar
optional: raw sugar
Instructions
- Roll out bottom crust and top crust.
- Line pan with bottom crust. Fill with filling. Top with top crust.
- Seal crusts with a bit of water. Crimp the edges. (Classic way is with a fork. Alternatively, you can pinch and pull with your fingers. See picture above.)
- Beat eggs with water, salt, and optionally sugar to make egg wash. Liberally brush the egg wash across the top crust.
- Optionally sprinkle top crust with raw sugar.
- Cut 3 to 5 vent holes into the top crust.
- Bake as per recipe.
This could take a while, so I usually don’t preheat the oven until after the top and bottom crusts are sealed. Also, I don’t actually know is raw sugar is a brand name or if it’s a generic product.
Writeup
Saturday, February 7, 2015 to Sunday, February 8, 2015 – I baked my first successful apple pie in November 2013 (which somehow never made my blog). So I wanted to see if I could do it again. Except last time, the apples settled, so there was an air gap between the top crust and the apple filling.
So I figured the best solution to this was to add more apples. And that’s why this mountain pie happened. It’s so tall, the pie crust is about twice as tall as the apple filling. Clearly, stuffing more apples into the pie isn’t the solution.
Not sure if you can tell in the photo, but the apple filling had very little liquid, and the liquid that I got really only soaked up the bottom layer of apples. Also, this many apples (4 galas, 2 granny smiths) took forever to bake through (1 hr 25 min), so the top crust was overbaked and tough.
Sunday, February 15, 2015 – I made chicken pot pies a long long time ago. But I decided to re-invent them based on my learnings from cooking class. (Because really, it’s the culmination of saute’ing, sauce-making, soup-making, and pretty much everything you would do in a saute pan.)
I made a few key mistakes though. I didn’t put enough flour to thicken up the sauce, so it was really liquid-y. I don’t know if you can tell from the photo, but most of the filling kinda just dripped out of the pie before it hit the plate.
The other mistake I made was I thought it would be a brilliant idea to roll out the dough and have it sit in the pan before I fill and bake it. And then I thought it would be a brilliant idea to keep the dough chilled (in the pan) while I’m making the filling. Yeah, cold pan means the bottom crust never cooks. And it was a glass pan, so that makes it worse.
Sunday, March 1, 2015 – So I figured that apple pie baked the day of would be better than apple pie baked the night before. So today, I decided to see if I could bake 2 pies (one sweet, one savory) in the same day. Spoiler alert: It took me 8 hours of non-stop labor to bake both pies. Yeah, scratch that idea.
I did change up the apple pie recipe to pre-cook the apples on the stovetop. This meant I could cook the apples and the crust independently, so I could cook both optimally. Also, since the apples would already be reduced by the time they filled the pie, there would be no awkward air gaps.
The chicken pot pie came out well, now that I changed up the ratios. Something odd happened with the roux-making though. Normally, when I make roux, the onions, carrots, and celery give off enough water that the flour soaks up the water and fat, and you get a nice paste that you can cook up. Except in this case, there was very little liquid (either water or fat), so it was just flour powder.
The key differences were: one, bacon fat instead of butter; two, shiitake mushrooms instead of celery. Either shiitakes soak up water and fat and leave nothing behind (most likely scenario, I think), or celery gives off a lot of water (not likely), or bacon fat doesn’t have as much fat as a stick of butter (somewhat likely).
Bottom was still a little underbaked though. I guess I should leave it in the oven longer.
(Photo courtesy of Tina)
Saturday, March 14, 2015 – Today was the big day. The Double Pie Pi Day. The Pi Day Pie-thon. And while everyone was waiting for food, I served them this fruit plate as an appetizer. Because I had leftover apples from Joy’s food photo shoot, and I decided to buy another ugly fruit for everyone.
The chicken pot pie came out great. This time, I baked the pie for a full hour, and the crust came out fully cooked. Every part of the pie was a hit. Some people wanted more crust. Others wanted more filling. What I did know is that people just wanted more pie. We had 7 people at the dinner party, and we ran out of chicken pot pie, and people had to be satiated with just desserts. Clearly, this pie serves at most 6 people. (But more than 4 people, since a similar pie several years ago fed 4 people and had lots of leftovers.)
The apple pie also came out great. (Although the picture isn’t as pretty as Joy’s.) My only regret is that I didn’t have time to bake both pies in the same day, because the crust was noticeably not fresh. (At least to me.) It was also confirmed that apple pie goes great with Old School Frozen Custard (although the vanilla custard contains no actual vanilla). Also, if no one stops me from dishing out ice cream, I will eventually get bored and stop dishing out ice cream. Oh and the pie was delicious and cinnamon-y.
Bonus: Frozen chicken pot pies reheat well. (These were leftovers from the Feb 15 batch.) I also learned a lot about microwaves from xkcd.