Month: September 2015

Week 2: Sausage Potato Pie

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I was right. It was all downhill after the Caramel Apple Streusel Pie.

Sausage Potato Pie

Not the greatest picture. Not the greatest pie. But, the pie, unlike the picture, shows promise.

It wasn’t that this pie wasn’t tasty – it definitely was! And it’s going to be a keeper, eventually… it just needs to some kinks worked out and adjustments made, which my talented assistant, Sammy (fabulous sister, darn fine cook) is in the process of testing out for me. So, don’t make this recipe yet! It will be improved upon very soon.

So, sausage and potato pie. I decided after the caramel apple perfection of Week 1 that I should next go for a savory pie, so as to lessen the competition. Wise choice. This pie is a riff on Irish potato pie, which uses thinly sliced potato, bacon, chives. (Layers of potatoes, little bits of bacon blessedly distributed throughout, flecks of chives adorning the top like savory sprinkles, a bit of heavy cream holding them all together inside a flaky crust—not much to dislike there.) I’ve made Italian sausage, potato, and sweet potato hashes before that we’ve really enjoyed, and I suspected it might transfer well into a savory pie.

It turned out that I was right – the simple crust compliments the flavors of the Italian sausage crumbles and the sweet potato/red potato mixture beautifully. But, by the time the potatoes were cooked all the way through in my too-hot oven, the top potatoes and the crust were burnt and tough. The flavors were so promising, though, that I think this pie merits rescuing. My guess is that the potatoes should be partially cooked (boiled) after being sliced but before being baked in the piecrust, and that the oven temperature and baking time should be reduced. Final goal: potatoes fully cooked and tender without necessitating a tough, burnt crust.

All of that to say, DON’T MAKE THIS PIE.

YET.

It has gone to the test kitchen, and hopefully will return soon in its new and greatly improved state, at which point I will excitedly post the edited recipe.

Sausage Potato Pie (made 9/26/2015)
In case you missed my several iterations of it above, don’t make this recipe! This pie recipe is only posted for the purposes of posterity, to remind myself that I’m the goof who didn’t prebake the potatoes at all and had to wait two hours for her supper to cook that night. Lesson learned.

Ingredients:
1 unbaked piecrust, rolled into a deep pie dish*
1 lb. loose Italian sausage (Because we always have ground pork in our freezer, we tend to make our Italian sausage from scratch, using Alton Brown’s recipe and omit the casing process. We like our sausage heavily seasoned, so you may opt to amp it up with extra black pepper, oregano, and/or parsley.)
1 medium onion, chopped
1 tsp. olive oil
2 ½ lbs. of a mixture of sweet potatoes and white potatoes, washed (I used a mixture of about one-third regular sweet potatoes, one-third O’Henry sweet potatoes, and one-third red potatoes)
¾ c. heavy whipping cream
1 tsp. kosher salt
fresh-ground black pepper

Cook and drain Italian sausage in a large frying pan over medium high heat; set aside. In the same pan, add olive oil and onion, and sauté on medium heat until the onion begins to brown. Set aside. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Peel sweet potatoes, if using. Slice all potatoes in rounds approximately ¼” thick. In a large bowl, combine potatoes, sautéed onions, sausage, salt, and several grinds of fresh black pepper. Toss to mix well, then arrange in the unbaked piecrust. For all of the filling to fit, the potato slices will need to lay flat in the pie pan. Drizzle the whipping cream over the top.

Bake at 400 degrees for almost 2 freaking hours, or until the potatoes are soft and hopefully the rest of it isn’t toasted to a crisp.

* One of these days I’ll sit down and write a post exclusively about piecrust. I come from a hardcore homemade from-scratch piecrust family. I won’t cast you out of my life forever if you use store-bought piecrust (just my kitchen), but I can guarantee that my mom won’t eat your pie.

Week 1: Caramel Apple Streusel Pie

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 Caramel Apple Streusel Pie 2

This pie. This pie almost convinced me to quit the Pie A Week challenge right then and there, because I knew it would all be downhill from then on out. The apples maintain their own distinct flavor, but the caramel creeps in on the edges, and the streusel! All streusel wants to taste like this streusel.

We tried this pie at a variety of temperatures (all in the name of science), and I decided that I like it best at room temperature. A dollop of fresh whipped cream on top doesn’t hurt either.

When I first talked about baking a pie once a week, I made sure to emphasize that I would be giving most of the pie away. Ha!

 

Caramel Apple Streusel Pie (made 9/19/2015)

Piecrust: (Alternatively, if you have no regard for anything holy, you may use a premade piecrust and skip to the pre-baking step.)
1 c. flour
pinch of kosher salt
1/3 c. shortening
ice water

Caramel Sauce:
½ c. (1 stick) butter
½ c. sugar
1 Tbsp. molasses
1/8 tsp. salt
¼ heavy whipping cream

Apple Filling:
9 medium apples (I used Jonathans, because I like their quintessential apple-y flavor)
¼ c. lemon juice
½ tsp. cinnamon

Streusel topping: (modified from the streusel in Bon Appetit’s Sour-Cherry Streusel pie here)
1 ½ c. flour
½ c. + 2 Tbsp. sugar
1 Tbsp. molasses
¼ tsp. kosher salt
½ c. butter, melted
½ tsp. vanilla

  1. Assemble the crust: Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Combine the salt and flour together in a small mixing bowl. Add the shortening and mix with a pastry blender or your fingers until you have a bowl of pea-sized crumbles. Add ¼ cup of ice-cold water (not the ice cubes) to the mixture. Mix with pastry blender or fingers until the mixture holds together in one ball, adding additional ice water a tablespoon at a time as needed, but being careful not to add too much water. Avoid adding too much water, which will make the pie dough sticky; if this happens, add a little more flour.

Roll to 1/4” thick and fit into an ungreased standard or extra deep (I prefer the latter) pie pan. Trim the edges so that there is a 1-inch overhang all around the pie pan. Fold the selvedge under and crimp with fingers or a fork all around the rim. Prick crust with a fork and bake for 8-10 minutes, using pie weights [which I don’t have, unless someone buys me some for Christmas—I use a smaller pie pan placed on top of a layer of parchment paper set inside the unbaked piecrust]. Set aside. Raise oven temperature to 375 degrees.

  1. Make caramel sauce: In a medium saucepan, combine butter, sugar, molasses, and salt. Cook over medium heat until it comes to a boil, stirring frequently. Continuing to stir, allow to boil for one more minute. Add whipping cream and return to a boil, stirring constantly and allowing to boil for 2-3 minutes further. Pour into the partially baked piecrust.
  1. Prepare filling: Keeping the apple skins on, slice apples ¼” thick. (I used my mandolin for this, and it worked well.) Toss apple slices with lemon juice and cinnamon. Layer in piecrust on top of caramel sauce.
  1. Prepare streusel topping: The way you’re supposed to assemble this is by first mixing all the dry ingredients, then rubbing the wet ingredients in with your fingers to achieve an overall crumbly texture. The truth is that I threw everything together in a bowl, mixed it thoroughly with my pastry blender, and then more or less played with it with my fingers until it was crumbly. Local sources (a.k.a. the husband and me) say it tastes just as good this way. Carefully pour [–pile, balance–] on top of the apple layer. Bake for 45-50 minutes, or until the caramel begins to bubble slightly and the streusel is browned. Allow to fully cool before cutting to allow the caramel sauce to set up.
Caramel Apple Streusel Pie

a pie to write home about

A Year of Pie

This is a story about pie. It begins with this pie:

IMG_20150911_171417

though really, pie has always played a happy and prominent role in my life. I will choose pie over cake any day of the week. My birthdays are commemorated by lemon meringue (with the exception of this year’s Butterfinger cream cheese pie). My sister mailed me this postcard while I was in college, which proved 1) her excellent taste and 2) just how well she knows me.

keep-your-fork

I still have the postcard, and the phrase has since become a household motto. I’ve read that it is supposed to imply something inspiring along the lines of “Keep your chin up; the best is yet to come,” but in our house, it means, “No, really. Keep your fork. We’re going to have pie. And if there’s no pie, that’s a tragedy and there should be.” Immortal truth: any reason is a good reason for pie.

But, back to that first pie up there. It started out with an innocent potluck dinner, to which I decided to bring a blueberry lemon pie. So, I spent a pleasant Friday afternoon procrastinating on dissertation research zesting lemons, rolling pie dough, cutting out pretty shapes, and generally playing in the kitchen. The weather was beautiful, the windows were open, the piecrust wasn’t fussy, and the cat for once stayed off the dining room table while I was working there. I had the following, logical succession of thoughts:

Boy, do I love pie.

Life is better with pie.

I think I could happily make pie at least once a week.

I should make pie once a week!

…For a year! A different one every week! My own recipes! And I should blog about it!

Begin the downward spiral, along which path I continue to blissfully spin. So, here begins the challenge – a pie a week for a year, my own original or noticeably modified recipes, documented on the internet for the sake of accountability and because I enjoy contributing pictures of pie to the world.

The plan is to post each recipe, with the exception of the blueberry lemon pie above, because I tend to be an improviser in the kitchen and didn’t think to keep track of ingredients (it being a pre-challenge pie and all; fear not, I plan to recreate it).

For the record, the blueberry lemon pie was delicious, and it earned me many accolades at the potluck. Pie for the win!

52 to go.