Duck Prosciutto & Fig Pie with Rosemary Goat Cheese, Crispy Duck & Wine Reduction | Pie Month | Charcutepalooza

This is the 15th, and final, entry in our Month of Pie. Pie Month is a celebration of things we love. Because life is hard, and there should always be more pie. Have a look at the other entries. Really. 

Pie #1 - Lemon Cream Icebox Pie

Pie #2 - Malted Crisp Tart

Pie #3 - Apple Green-Chili Pie with Cheddar Crust and Walnut Streusel

Pie #4 - Peanut Butter Cream Pie with Chocolate Whipped Cream

Pie #5 - Butterscotch Cream Pie with Gingersnap Crust and Cashew Brittle

Pie #6 - Banana Cream Pie with Chocolate Chip Cookie Crust

Pie #7 - Chocolate Kahlua Pie

Pie #8 - Bacon and Egg Pizza

Pie #9 - Pork Confit Pie with Creme Fraiche Potatoes and Puff Pastry

Pie #10 - Raspberry Pie and the Perfect Pie Crust

Pie #11 - Lime Pie with Gingersnap Crust  

Pie #12 - Bourbon Sweet Potato Pie + Bourbon Whipped Cream and Warm Bourbon for Dipping  

Pie #13 - Crack Pie

Pie #14 - Chocolate Soufflé Pie  

When I was 11, I used to play tag with my cow in our pasture.

It was a goof really. An accident. But then we couldn't stop.

We had three acres growing up, most of it pasture, fenced in, with a low catch of electrified wire to keep the sheep in place. Then the horse. And the pony. Then the cows. The pigs stayed in the barn. Chickens for a while with a rooster named Roscoe P. Coltrane who terrorized us. Rabbits for a while. 

Each type of animal, the rabbits, the chickens and so on...they had a certain expiration date in our lives. We have rabbits. Then add some chickens. Now we're done with the rabbits. Let's get sheep. Now we're done with the rooster (thank god). Now we're done with the chickens. 

And being done meant one of two things: either we sold them or we ate them. Wait. Except the horse. And the pony. They went to relatives who were ready for a new challenge. And so we led the animals into the back of the truck, or walked them up the plank to the back of the animal trailer, good money made from their lives. There were fairs and ribbons, but always, there was money.

And death. And new animals. With new names. With death and a little money hanging over their time in the pasture.

And that. That is how it is. There were tears, always. Even for the pigs, because they loved to be scratched behind their ears and right along their spines. They'd come to the fence, rubbing their shoulder back and forth along the fence, grunting for an ear scratch.

And then we killed them. 

It is as easy and as horrible as it sounds, as thoughtless and full of emotion, all in the same instance. You feed a baby cow a milk substitute out of a metal bucket with a giant nipple on the side, spit and milk slowly covering its nose and chin, and then you're castrating him, and before you know it, you're calling up your neighbor to take the cow to the beef and dairy auction in Shipshewana.

Two weeks. Making another run in two weeks. And that's the rest of the time this steer has, which I named Rudy. Rudy has two weeks. And then I'll get some money for my savings account.

That is how Rudy and I began playing tag. I was out with him in the pasture, I'm sure feeling guilty about having named his expiration date. Rubbing that circle of fur in the middle of his flat face, all dirty yellow white. When he took off in a lumbering gallop. Then he stopped on a sliding dime, turned himself to face me, and stood very, very still. I really didn't know what to do. So I walked toward him, slowly. When I got ten feet from him, he took off further in the pasture. I jogged toward him, getting closer and closer. He stopped suddenly and turned his head to me. A light touch on that circle of fur on his face. Staring into those vacant wet eyes. 

I walked back toward the house. When a rumbling came from behind. He was chasing me. With speed. I took off running as fast as I could, because a ball-less cow is less dangerous than a bull, sure, but it is still a sight of terror.


He grazed my elbow with his ear. 

Just his ear. 

Nearly 1000 pounds of beef, and it was his ear that got me. 

And so I stopped. 

And off he ran, looking behind him. 

Click to read more ...

Crack Pie (via Momofuku Bakery & Milk Bar) | Pie Month

This is the 13th entry in our Month of Pie. Pie Month is a celebration of things we love. Because life is hard, and there should always be more pie. Have a look at the other entries. Really. 

Pie #1 - Lemon Cream Icebox Pie

Pie #2 - Malted Crisp Tart

Pie #3 - Apple Green-Chili Pie with Cheddar Crust and Walnut Streusel

Pie #4 - Peanut Butter Cream Pie with Chocolate Whipped Cream

Pie #5 - Butterscotch Cream Pie with Gingersnap Crust and Cashew Brittle

Pie #6 - Banana Cream Pie with Chocolate Chip Cookie Crust

Pie #7 - Chocolate Kahlua Pie

Pie #8 - Bacon and Egg Pizza

Pie #9 - Pork Confit Pie with Creme Fraiche Potatoes and Puff Pastry

Pie #10 - Raspberry Pie and the Perfect Pie Crust

Pie #11 - Lime Pie with Gingersnap Crust  

Pie #12 - Bourbon Sweet Potato Pie  + Bourbon Whipped Cream and Warm Bourbon for Dipping 

In Indiana, where I grew up, the ubiquitous pie is Old Fashioned Cream. I love this pie. It is simple, unadorned, oozing Shaker and Quaker simplicity, with a healthy dose of Amish and Mennonite reserve. The recipe is basic: butter, sugar, eggs, cream. With the right quality of ingredients, it is a revelation.

But then there is chess pie. Which the name alone threw me. As a Midwesterner, I’d never heard of it (shoo-fly, yes; chess pie, no). From what I gather, it is in the same vein as Old Fashioned Cream, with the focus on a pie made of pantry items. And several of our friends on Twitter were urging us to make chess pie for this Month of Pie. I was torn. If we weren’t making Old Fashioned Cream, how could I make chess? A terrible quandary, of course.

Leave it to the David Chang empire to resolve the issue for us. We’ve already written of our love from Chef Chang, his steamed buns (not a metaphor) and Brussels sprouts. The most famous pie of the last couple of years from the research we did is Momofuku Bakery & Milk Bar’s Crack Pie. A combination of old fashioned cream combined with chess pie at its soul, it cranks it up with a homemade oatmeal cookie crust. This pie retails for over $44 a pie. Which makes me incredibly happy that pie is in such demand. But immediately, our hype sensors go on alert. 

To be honest, we were skeptical. The pie comes out brown. And low-slung. And the tiniest bit sad. This pie gets a rating of “looks 2, taste 10.” And, thankfully, the hype lives up to reality and to its name.

I took the first slice/bite of the crack pie on an empty stomach while standing over the kitchen sink. The first taste was happy, pleasant. A thin piece, it was gone in a matter of seconds. I thought, “Well, that was nice. Maybe we’ll post it, maybe we won’t.” Then three minutes later, the sugar rush kicked in. I felt like I was flying, the surge of power and happiness coursing through my veins.

I needed more pie. Immediately. I cut a bigger piece and really paid attention this time. The brown sugar is what pops first. Then the cream. Then the vanilla. Then the crunch of the oatmeal cookie crust. I could taste every single ingredient. There’s something brilliant about pie and being able to single out every ingredient separately and tasting them all at once, bouncing off your tongue, then waiting for the surge to kick in, again, a fix of pie.

I waited 10 minutes for my third piece, this one a little bigger. 

And as I write this, I want to make another Crack Pie.

While it’s not as pretty as the other pies in the Month of Pie, its the one I think about the most. And the one I want to make first next month.

Make it for yourself. Test the hype. Become a believer. Don’t make this pie for a fancy dinner party. Make it for someone who already loves you, or you want to make love you. One slice, and they’re yours.

recipe | Crack Pie (via Momofuku Bakery & Milk Bar and the LA Times)

Bourbon Sweet Potato Pie with Bourbon Whipped Cream and Warm Bourbon on the Side (via Four & Twenty Blackbirds) | Pie Month

This is the 12th entry in our Month of Pie. Pie Month is a celebration of things we love. Because life is hard, and there should always be more pie. Have a look at the other entries. Really. 

Pie #1 - Lemon Cream Icebox Pie

Pie #2 - Malted Crisp Tart

Pie #3 - Apple Green-Chili Pie with Cheddar Crust and Walnut Streusel

Pie #4 - Peanut Butter Cream Pie with Chocolate Whipped Cream

Pie #5 - Butterscotch Cream Pie with Gingersnap Crust and Cashew Brittle

Pie #6 - Banana Cream Pie with Chocolate Chip Cookie Crust

Pie #7 - Chocolate Kahlua Pie

Pie #8 - Bacon and Egg Pizza

Pie #9 - Pork Confit Pie with Creme Fraiche Potatoes and Puff Pastry

Pie #10 - Raspberry Pie and the Perfect Pie Crust

Pie #11 - Lime Pie with Gingersnap Crust 

This pie begins in total fail. It ends in triumph.


I forgot to put the sweet potato into this sweet potato pie. I had prepared the sweet potatoes the day before I baked the pie. Thinking ahead. Using my time wisely. Good on me. Trying to impress Karen, really. I’ve got this pie under control, dear. Completely under control.


I had wanted to make a pie from the infamous Four & Twenty Blackbirds in Brooklyn. They are pie masters, and if I was going to make anyone’s pie, a sweet potato pie, it had to be theirs. Bourbon is used liberally in this pie, as it should be used in most things. When I went to Gary’s Wine in Madison to get some bourbon, the guy on the floor asked me what I was making (I had griled him about small batch vs. big label bourbon, the differences in quality and taste). When I told him it was for a bourbon sweet potato pie, he stood very still, looked a bit into the distance and said, “Oh. Wow. That sounds incredible.” 


And so I made the Four & Twenty Blackbirds' crust, beautiful flakes of butter throughout the dough. It was going to be great. Then I mixed what would be the pie guts, heavy with bourbon and spice. Par-baked the crust, just as the recipe said. It looked like a winner. I put the filling into the crust, slid it into the oven, closing the latch with a certain satisfaction.

As I was cleaning up the kitchen, my eye spied a medium-sized bowl. Wait, why is that bowl sitting there? That’s the sweet potato bowl. And there they sat, their orange surfaces turning brown, slowly, as if they knew they’d been left behind. 


There were expletives. The kids were taking naps. So there were expletives.


Grabbing the hot pads, I flew to the oven, undid the safety latch, and saw the beautiful crust being swallowed up by the bourbon sugar pond in the middle. Game over, pie crust.


Pie fail.


Until.


Until I remembered I had made extra pie crust from Melissa Clark. You know, that perfect pie crust? With the duck fat? Even in failure, I still had this situation under control. I poured the bourbon sugar pond into the sweet potatoes, threw away the now-soggy pie crust, and began rolling out Melissa’s crust. It behaved perfectly, like it had heard the expletives from inside the refrigerator. Par-baked it just as instructed in the Four & Twenty Blackbird recipe. Whisked together the sweet potatoes with the bourbon and sugar (which as noticeably thicker with sweet potatoes included, go figure).


And the pie was perfect. Set up just right. Tasted of depth and caramel sweetness. And a little kick of bourbon.

After that adventure in failure, I needed more bourbon. So I made some bourbon whipped cream (cream whipped without sugar, some bourbon splashed in). And that was a great touch. 


But I needed more bourbon.


I looked at Karen and said, “I want to dip this in warm bourbon.” Which really has to make a wife proud. A bit of bourbon in a small bowl. 10 seconds in the microwave. A dip into the rich brown liquid with the tip of the pie, then a dip into the whipped bourbon cream. 


And this is pie. A triumph out of failure. A boozy victory. A perfect pie.




recipe | Bourbon Sweet Potato Pie (via Four & Twenty Blackbirds and Bon Appetit) + Bourbon Whipped Cream and Warm Bourbon for Dipping

Lime Pie with Gingersnap Crust (via Magnolia Bakery) | Pie Month

This is the 11th entry in our Month of Pie. Pie Month is a celebration of things we love. Because life is hard, and there should always be more pie. Have a look at the other entries. Really. 

Pie #1 - Lemon Cream Icebox Pie

Pie #2 - Malted Crisp Tart

Pie #3 - Apple Green-Chili Pie with Cheddar Crust and Walnut Streusel

Pie #4 - Peanut Butter Cream Pie with Chocolate Whipped Cream

Pie #5 - Butterscotch Cream Pie with Gingersnap Crust and Cashew Brittle

Pie #6 - Banana Cream Pie with Chocolate Chip Cookie Crust

Pie #7 - Chocolate Kahlua Pie

Pie #8 - Bacon and Egg Pizza

Pie #9 - Pork Confit Pie with Creme Fraiche Potatoes and Puff Pastry

Pie #10 - Raspberry Pie and the Perfect Pie Crust 

I love key lime pie. 

I also hate making key lime pie. I know those little green balls of tart demand I get rhapsodic about them, about slicing them in half and squeezing out their life force and making a giant wonderful something something. 

But, honestly, I despise them, truly. So much work. So little juice. So inappropriately expensive here in New Jersey. Cutting them open, getting a wee bit of juice from each key lime, wondering how I’ll ever get enough juice for a pie, while the Pyrex measuring cup seems to be unimpressed with my juicing endeavors.

And so I’ve given up on them. They’re dead to me, those key limes. The citrus name we shall not speak.

However...

As long as the world keeps making gin, this house will always have limes in it. And if there are limes here, there must also be pie.

We love this lime pie recipe from Magnolia Bakery. It has two things working hard for it. First is the gingersnap crust, which pushes back against the sweetened condensed milk, it’s spicy playfulness taunting and finally making friends with the filling.

The second thing that sends this pie over the top is the lime zest. We used our microplane to get a fine cut from the lime, spreading the goodness throughout the filling without letting giant wads of peel destroy the fun.

This pie is no effort at all. Isn’t that nice? Make this pie. Sometimes easy is perfect.

recipe | Lime Pie with Gingersnap Crust (via Magnolia Bakery)


For the crust

• 4 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
• 1 ½ cups gingersnap cookie crumbs from cookies blitzed in the food processor 

Turn on the oven to 325 F.


In a bowl, combine the butter and cookie crumbs until evenly coated. Press the mixture into a 9-inch pie plate. Press it harder. Go back again and press the whole bit harder against the sides and bottom of the plate. Slide it into the oven. Bake for 10 minutes. Go zest and squeeze your limes (not a metaphor). Once the crust is done, take it out and cool it on a rack for 10 minutes.


For the filling

• 21 ounces sweetened condensed milk
• 6 egg yolks
• 1 cup lime juice 
• 1 tablespoon lime zest

In the bowl of your electric mixer, throw in the milk, yolks, and lime juice. Turn on low until its all mixed together. Add the zest and turn on low until you see the flecks throughout the mixture. 


Pour the filling into the crust. Bake for 25-30 minutes. You’re looking for a solid center with no wiggle.


Cool the pie down a bit, between another 20-30 minutes. Then throw it in the refrigerator for 2 hours at least (sorry you have to wait). 

Serve with unsweetened whipped cream and a slice of lime zest if you’re feeling fancy.

The Perfect Pie Crust and Raspberry Pie with Twice-Baked Crust (via Melissa Clark) | Pie Month

This is the 10th entry in our Month of Pie. Pie Month is a celebration of things we love. Because life is hard, and there should always be more pie. Have a look at the other entries. Really. 

Pie #1 - Lemon Cream Icebox Pie

Pie #2 - Malted Crisp Tart

Pie #3 - Apple Green-Chili Pie with Cheddar Crust and Walnut Streusel

Pie #4 - Peanut Butter Cream Pie with Chocolate Whipped Cream

Pie #5 - Butterscotch Cream Pie with Gingersnap Crust and Cashew Brittle

Pie #6 - Banana Cream Pie with Chocolate Chip Cookie Crust

Pie #7 - Chocolate Kahlua Pie

Pie #8 - Bacon and Egg Pizza

Pie #9 - Pork Confit Pie with Creme Fraiche Potatoes and Puff Pastry

The very foundation of pie has always proved my Achilles heel. 


I can’t make crust. Karen can, and her crusts are always perfect. It’s kind of offensive, really, when your wife can make a pie crust that is 100x better than your own, especially when you, I, try so hard to get it right. And for years, I swore off homemade crusts, and just purchased them pre-made, ready to bake.


But no more. No more shall my crusts hang in sorrow. No more shall I wince when pie tasters ask how I made my crust. No more pie crust shame, my friends, no more crust shame.


My new secret weapon of a crust comes straight from Melissa Clark, writer of all things wonderful. Melissa is a new friend of ours on Twitter, and she’s the best thing that’s happened to our family in recent memory. Her latest book, In the Kitchen with A Good Appetite, is so very special, and it made loads of “best of 2010” cookbooks lists. Deservedly. Her writing is wickedly perfect, thoughtful, funny, spot-on happy. Every one of her pieces is a discovery for her. And you want to go on every one of those journeys with her.


If you’re not reading her column in the NYTimes, you’re missing something special.


And if you’re not making her crusts, you life is empty and so very sad.


This crust, all butter or with a cut of animal fat (duck fat in our case), is flakier than you deserve. Simple as anything you’ve ever made in a food processor. Not at all fussy and no work at all (yes, you roll it out later, but that builds character). No soggy bottoms to boot. Really, she deserves thanks from all the pie-eating world for perfecting the crust.

And then her cherry pie recipe with a twice-baked crust. Reading her account of making a delightful recipe even better made me want to try my hand at it, too. But there were no sour cherries to be found, unless I wanted to spend a fortune to buy 10 pounds of cherries and have them shipped to our house (I did, but I knew better than to raise it with Karen). 


So on a whim at the grocery store, I grabbed a few bags of frozen raspberries, wondering if I might substitute them for the cherries. Raspberry pie in the middle of winter seemed like a swell fantasy. Now to see if we could make it a reality...


Melissa’s recipe calls for kirsch or brandy. Since we were using raspberries, Chambord seemed like a good substitute. Karen’s favorite drink is a take on a kir royale (we use Prosecco and Chambord, which seems more than fine). So Chambord is always on hand here. 


And because of the juciness of frozen raspberries which seem to gush red tears everywhere, I added in the full amounth of ground up instant tapioca.


The results? The most wonderful, thrilling raspberry pie. You must. You must make this.

In Melissa’s recipe, she calls for circles of cut out dough to be placed on top, forming a beautiful double crust. Given that we have yet to put away the holiday cookie cutters and we had no circular cutters, my choices were a star, a Christmas tree, Santa, or a candy cane. I opted for the star, channeling my inner county fair pie maker. A little cream dabbed on each star, a little sugar for a punch of shine. It could be July 4th, even in the dead of winter.


So this is a thank you note to Melissa Clark, for wonderful writing, perfect pie crusts, and the inspiration and encouragement to go make great food.


recipe | The best pie crust ever from Melissa Clark
recipe | Use Melissa's Sour Cherry Pie recipe exactly, but substitute an equal amount of frozen raspberries for the cherries, Chambord for the brandy/kirsch, and use the full amount of tapioca