Sweet pie crust

A sudden urge to eat a bakewell tart turned in to an experiment with sweet pie crust. Usually I use one of two recipes. One which I learned from my mother many many moons ago (click here for recipe) and the other from my "Spago desserts" recipe book. As I was looking for my recipe for bakewell tart I discovered yet another pie crust recipe.

This one came from the same friend who gave me the bakewell tart recipe. It came with the note "you probably have your own recipe, but here's one just in case". Now I'm not too keen on recipes that use either just egg yolks or just the whites. I think that this is a waste of half an egg. I guess if you could coordinate things well you could make two things in parallel. One that uses the whites and one that uses the yolks. However, I usually only have time to make one thing and then the rest of the egg gets forgotten in the fridge until it is rescued by someone who asks who's science experiment it is! So I've never used my friends crust recipe. In fact, I must admit, I never quite got past the list of ingredients. Since I had some time on my hands I read through it and although I still did not like the ingredients I found the method to be rather intriguing. So I combined a dough recipe from "Spago" together with the technique I learned from my mum to make dough and the technique from my friend as to setting up the pie crust. And what turned out is definitely a keeper. It's delicious, crisp and light.

The smaller ones are a bit over done!

Preparation time: 3 hours (but if you don't let it sit then it's done in an hour); makes 3 9" pie crusts

Ingredients:

4 oz	Ground almonds
1 lb 2 oz	Flour
12 oz	Butter, cold
8 oz	Sugar
1	Egg, lightly beaten

Method:

Ground almonds or almond meal is readily available in Germany (which is where I live). In the USA you may have to make your own. To do this put your almonds in an oven at 375 F and toast until golden 12-15 minutes. You will need to turn them so that they are evenly browned so after around 6 minutes. Allow your nuts to cool completely and then grind them. If you are in a country where almonds are scarce you have two options either omit them completely or substitute with a different nut. Whichever nut you use make sure you roast it first so that the crust is crunchy. Also if you use a different nut and it works please let everyone know in the comments below.

Put the ground almonds (or other nuts) together with the flour and sugar in a large bowl and mix briefly. Then cut up the butter into small pieces and work it into the flour mixture using the technique described here.

Once your mixture looks like bread crumbs add the egg and mix everything together until it is just combined. Don't over knead your dough. It will become tough and will not taste good.

Now roll your dough into a sausage, wrap it in cling wrap and refrigerate for at least one hour, preferably overnight (If you are a busy mum use immediately. It won't be fabulous but it will be good enough for the masses).

About an hour before you plan on baking your pie take the dough out of the fridge. Cut it into thin slices and line your baking tray. Fill the gaps by pressing larger pieces gently together or by filling with small pieces of dough. The resulting pie will look like a most delicious patchwork quilt.

If you have the time put the pie crust in the fridge for another hour, or over night.

If you need to pre-bake your pie crust bake at 180 C (in a fan oven) for around 10 minutes (yes, this crust bakes really quickly). Fill your pie with filling and return to oven.
If you need just a pastry shell to fill with a cold filling then bake for 15 minutes until golden brown. The pie crust below is filled with lemon curd.

The recipe gives enough dough for 3 pie crusts. You can freeze the rest of the dough for later use. You can also just bake it in slivers for a crunchy cookie. 

Fried Eggplant Quiche

Today is Ascension Day, which means it is a public holiday. And as always, this means that all the shops are closed in Germany. Of course I didn't have time to check the cupboards and go out and stock up! I always have the basics like flour, sugar, eggs and rice so I can always put something together.
Today I had an eggplant. A single, lonely eggplant sitting in my fridge. Not enough to make a curry from or enough to make any thing really special. After all today is fathers day in Germany so we needed something special. The tradition being to get a cart, fill it up with bottles of beer and to head out to the nearest wood to get drunk with all the other fathers. However, something a bit more subtle was necessary since not many people follow the tradition any more. Especially not the fathers! So I decided to put the eggplant in a quiche along with some garlic and fresh, organic peppermint from my planter. I used the caramelized leek quiche recipe to help me along.

Preparation time: 1.5 - 2 hours. Serves 4

Ingredients:

Pastry:
	6 oz	Four
	3 oz	Butter, cold
	1/4 tsp.	Salt
Filling:
	5 tbsp.	Oil
	325 g	Eggplant
	1 tbsp.	Fresh peppermint leaves
	2 cloves	Garlic
		Salt and pepper to taste
	2 tbsp.	Parmesan, grated
	3	Eggs
	125 ml	Whipping cream

Method:

First of all I made the pastry for the crust. You can find instructions here. I discovered that I had some whole wheat flour when I was going through the cupboards this morning so I decided to use this for the pastry. I used half white and half whole wheat flour. Once the pastry was done I stuck it in the fridge to rest for a bit. While it was resting I put the frying pan on the cooker on high and tipped in 3 table spoons of oil. While it was heating I chopped up the eggplant just like one would do for an eggplant curry. They looked like this:

Once the oil was hot I fried them until they were golden brown. Eggplant is the most funny vegetable ever (at least to me it is). Initially it absorbs all the oil in the pan and then when it is fried enough it lets a lot of the oil out again. This is why I always fry my eggplant nice and brown otherwise it is just too oily to eat. I actually had to divide my eggplant into 4 batches to fry it. After two batches I added in another 2 tablespoons of oil and that was enough for the rest.

After finishing 2 batches I put on the oven (180 C fan, 200 C/400 F conventional), took out the pastry and rolled it to fit my all time favourite, almost 9 inch, flan pan. Once the oven was hot I baked it blind for 15 minutes (if you missed this you can find it in this blog). While it was baking I finished frying the eggplant. On the side I cleaned the peppermint and chopped it and peeled the garlic and grated it. I also mixed together the eggs and cream in a large bowl and added the salt, pepper, garlic and peppermint.

After 15 minutes of baking blind I took out my beans and put the crust back in the oven for another 10 minutes or so. Then I took out the crust and arranged the eggplant in the bottom of the pie shell.

Next step was to pour over the egg and cream mixture and sprinkle the top with some finely grated Parmesan cheese. It was all very simple. It then went in the oven for .... sorry about that I forgot to look at the clock! So I'm going to have to say "until it was golden brown". Probably was about 20 minutes or so.

The result was consumed with a salad of lettuce and tomatoes and was "a keeper" according to my husband. And that is basically why I am sharing it with you all. My oldest was not too keen on it, she didn't like the peppermint :(

Basic Pastry

Bored out of my brains waiting for my eldest to be done with her gymnastics practice. One of those bad deals where it’s too far to drive back home but the wait is long if I chose not to go grocery shopping, which is the case today. But there is a silver lining to every cloud and in this case it is a pastry recipe.

The pastry is really easy to make. My mother taught me how to make it and I’ve been making it for decades. Once my mum figured out that my pastry tasted the best I was stuck for life making pastry! I remember once being dragged to the Indian Consulate in Kandy, Sri Lanka to demonstrate how I made the pastry!! Eventually, I figured out that the only reason my pastry turned out well was because I had cold hands. As I said above there is always a silver lining to a cloud.

So the trick is keep everything super cold. If you have regular hands that means you need to stick them in some ice to keep them cold while you are making the pastry. Alternatively you could use a food processor or a pastry thingy but the pastry will never taste as good as if you made it by hand. I bought an expensive food processor specifically to make pastry and returned it within a couple of days because the pastry was not up to par. 

This amount will make the base for a 9” tart. For something bigger or a thicker crust use 8 oz. of flour.

Ingredients:

           6 oz     Flour

           3 oz     Cold butter

           ¼ tsp.  Salt

                      Cold Water

Method:

Put the flour and salt into a bowl and mix. Cut the butter up into small pieces and put it in with the flour.

If you need to keep the bowl cool (because you live in the tropics or have super warm hands) put it in an ice bed. Keeping it all cool is the key to good flaky pastry.

Now rub the butter into the flour using the tips of your fingers. It’s a bit difficult to explain how to rub the butter in but I’ll give it a try. First mix the butter in so that it is all coated with flour. Then get your hand(s) coated in the flour. Pick up some butter and flour with your fingers and balance it on your four fingers. Using your thumb rub the butter off back into the bowl. If you are unsure as to how to do this try it without anything in your hand. Just rub your four finger tips, starting at your pinky and moving up to your pointing finger, with the tip of your thumb. This is the action you need to use but with flour and butter in between. The pieces of butter will become smaller and smaller until you have something that looks like this. (Commonly called "looks like breadcrumbs").

Don’t forget to keep your hands cold. If you feel like the butter is melting in your hands then you are too warm and your pastry won’t be light and fluffy.

Next you need to add some water. Add a little bit at a time and stir it well into the flour. You might consider using a knife to do this. At some point you will notice that the pastry starts lumping together. At this point stick in your hand and try forming the pastry into a ball. It should stick nicely together but not be sticky. Very carefully form a nice ball. 

Cover in cling wrap and stick it in the fridge to rest. Apparently dough needs to rest, but I have not figured out why yet!!

Once it's rested use it to make something like this:

Vegetarian Pot Pie

Oh, I was so craving for something wholesome and hot to eat!

The bright September sunshine had given way to clouds and there was a chill in the air and thus the craving. But there were other problems to be solved: like the ton of vegetables sitting in my fridge just begging to be eaten. I pulled them all out and found that I had quite a colourful array.

Remembering the taste of the chicken pie's my mother used to make when I was young, inspired me to turn the veggies into a pot pie (or pot pie's as it was since I don't have a proper large pie dish). So I did my usual thing, I Googled "vegetarian pot pie recipe". Nothing interesting showed up, nothing that would use up MY particular array of vegetables. So I decided to go it alone! The result turned out quite okay and pleased the whole family. There was a bit of haggling over the pie crusts. My husband doesn't like his crusts so I thought I could eat his but he wasn't parting today. My little one was saving them to the end so I pretended to be dense and asked her if she'd set them aside because she didn't want them (reaching toward her plate as I was saying this). Her plate moved super fast. Needless to say there was no chance of getting a bite of someone else's crusts. My older daughter told me that she was not parting either, not today!

Serves: 4 as an appetiser or 2 as a main

Ingredients:

Pastry:
	6 oz (175 g)	Flour
	3 oz (90 g)	Cold butter
	1/4 tsp.	Salt
Filling:
	1 1/2 oz (40 g)	Butter
	1 cup	Sliced onions
	1 tbsp.	Chopped garlic
	2 tbsp.	Flour
	1 1/2 cup	Water
	1/2	Veggie cube
	2	Bay leaves
	2 bowls	Random vegetables cut into bite sized cubes
		Salt and Pepper
	1	Egg, lightly beaten

Method:

I firmly believe that the pastry requires it's own post! So if you've discovered this after I've written the pastry post (I guess I should have done that first!) here is the link: Pastry Post. But if you are an ardent follower and just live to read my rantings then the above link DOES NOT WORK! But then that is not an issue because you'll soon see the recipe here.

So start off by making the pastry, wrap it in cling wrap and stick it in the fridge to rest.

You need to prepare your vegetables into bite sized pieces. If you are making individual pot pies like I did then it's not possible to eat your pie with a knife and fork. Actually it's quite challenging to cut anything which is inside a ramekin! My two bowls of veggie were just enough for everyone to be full but not stuffed. Next time I will make a bit more.

Notice, that all my veggies take about the same time to cook. Nothing is going to get over cooked if I throw it all in the pan at the same time. This was just luck. If you have things that cook quicker you'll have to add them later (mushrooms for example). 

Put a pan on the stove on medium heat and add the butter. Let the butter slowly melt. If you happen to burn the butter (i.e. it turns brown) trash the butter, wipe out the pan and start over. Burnt butter tastes disgusting and thus so will your pie.

Once the butter has melted add the garlic and onions and cook for about 2 minutes. Stir them regularly so that they are evenly cooked. 

Next add the flour and continue to stir until the flour is cooked. What on earth it means for the flour to be "cooked" and how you can tell that it is "cooked" I have no idea! So I generally cook it for about 30 seconds. If you want a bit of colour to your gravy then you have to let the flour brown a bit. 

Next add the water and the veggie cube all in one go and continue stirring. (You can substitute vegetable stock instead of the water and veggie cube.) Thanks to the onions and your vigorous stirring your gravy should not form any lumps. Once the gravy is smooth (i.e. all well combined, no lumps) throw in the bay leaves. Allow the gravy to simmer until it thickens. This is not a very thick gravy. 

Once the gravy has thickened add the vegetables, ...

and stir until it's all well combined. Next add salt and pepper to your taste. 

Cover the pan and let the contents simmer and cook for around 20 minutes or until the vegetables are just tender. Of course the time needed to cook will depend on the vegetables used. Be careful not to over cook them because they have to go back into the oven and you don't want to be eating mush.

While the filling is cooking take out the pastry from the fridge and get ready to make the pie lids. I used four small ramekins for my pot pies. You can use a large pie pan or any other pan as long as it is oven proof. 

I cut my pastry into four pieces and rolled each one out so that it was just larger than the top of the ramekin. If you want to have a base for your pie you will need to make double the amount of pastry. 

Then once the vegetables are cooked divide them equally among the ramekins.

Pop the pie lid on top and trim the sides. I kept on as much pastry as possible and secured the sides by pressing down on the outside of the dish. Don't forget to make some slits on the top so that the steam can come out. Make a pretty pattern with a sharp knife.

Then brush the lid with the beaten egg and voila! it is ready for the oven. 

Bake this baby (or these babies!) at 180 Celsius in a fan oven or 200 C in a conventional oven (that would be 400 F in most American ovens) and after around 30 minutes (I'm guessing, I forgot to look at the time when I pulled it out of the oven), once the pastry is golden brown it is ready to be served. Be careful it is extremely hot. Ours sat on the table for at least 20 minutes before they were eaten (hubby got stuck at the office) and they were still very hot.