peach pie
Everywhere you go in the USA, there's pie. Fruit pies. Lemon chiffon pie, chocolate cream pie, coconut cream pie, things with meringue and without meringue. Boston cream pie. Soon there'll be pumpkin pie too. And everywhere, fruit. Blueberry pie. Apple pie. Peach pie. Strawberry rhubarb pie. Cherry pie.
I love this! In America you have to try, not to eat pie. Half the people I know prefer pie to cake. It's lighter, more flavourful, more differentiated; it feels better for you (especially fruit pie; the peach pie above has no fat except for the pastry, which I rolled thin, and about half as much sugar as a cake without icing): more like real food. Fruit pies also celebrate, in a very real way, the harvest, the fact that things come into season and are there in plenty. They're much more about the earth and the seasons and how we're all part of that. Plus you can have ice cream with it and nobody thinks that's at all excessive.
Not that I don't love a good cake! Dear me, no. Anyway, the aforementioned Boston cream pie, a lifelong love of mine, is a perfect celebration of cake, the way it comes into season any time you want - and eggs. Yes, it celebrates those. And chocolate icing. As a child, if ever presented with options that incuded a Boston cream pie, eg like at the Ponderosa Steak House, I invariably chose that. Why mess around with second-best? A Boston cream pie is essentially a sponge cake, layered, and in the middle is custard - technically, a thick crème patissière - with chocolate icing, not thick frosting mind, maybe more a glaze, on top. Much better than a chocolate cream pie, which must be the most boring dish on the planet. It's the best.
Meanwhile, here's my peach pie, making use of the last usable peaches of the year, fresh from the oven. I always, by the way, make a lattice crust. So much nicer in every way. I'm just sorry you can't hear it sizzling and see it bubbling, with the steam rising, and smell its peachiness wafting through the flat.
Also the best.
It'll be gone by nightfall.
(The rest of the meal: a mushroom ragoût with red wine and marsala, polenta, a roast free range chicken, and with the pie a choice of whipped cream or ice cream, and some seasonal fresh figs. I'm limiting Ms R S-D's wine consumption this afternoon to some reasonable amount, and to proper wine. The kids can stay up as long as they like.)
12 comments:
ahhhh, Boston cream pie! It's been years.
Pumkin pie is on the cards soon. I cheat and get the pre-mixed tins of ED Smith's (Canadian, yum!) from the Aussie, Canada shop on Henreitta street in covent garden. Better than Libbys
Pleasing though a fruit pie is, as a Brit I am always happier with a savoury pie - chicken and ham being a favourite, or sausage and potato if I'm feeling particularly under-carbed. But anything involving pastry generally gets my vote.
It's a small tragedy to deliver the pie to mere memory by nightfall. There's nothing like a slice for breakfast.
Kris, you're joking - is it pre-made?? Libby's you can get from Ocado, now - but I don'y mind a trip to CG. Funny, Ms R S-D and I were just discussing pumpkin pie less than an hour ago - time of year and all that. She's Canadian, you see.
Miss H, spoken like a true Englishwoman. What can I say. Though your words about patry generally do cheer me up again - pastry is ibe f the great civilisers.
Bobby - by a miracle they were full! There are THREE pieces of pie left! All will be well. I'm glad you felt the unspoken tragedy in that little scenario.
I had a slice of pizza down at the docks in San Diego and it was the best pizza I've ever eaten, and at another place near my hostel on Fifth Avenue I ate three big slices in a row, and I recommend Greyhound bus travel to everyone even though one of the drivers was a woman who sped through the mountains like a stock car racer.
Robert.
I'm sorry to be incongruous but I have to get as much in as I can.
Would it be so impudent to ask for the recipe?
RH, never fear. Pizza of often referrred to as a pie in the USA. And New York has the best pizza in the universe.
Charles. Sigh. Well, I have a fantastic pastry method, which I can email you later if you like, but for this pie I used fgood old ready-made shortcrust pastry. (Not as good, but okay.) I use a ten-inch Pyrex pie dish, rather deep. You can buy them anywhere (hm, I don't know Italy).
Okay. Slice up seven peaches, or six big ones. I used half a cup of sugar, some white, some brown. I sprnkled in a load of cinnamon and nutmeg - maybe 1tsp of cinammon, 1/4 tsp of nutmeg? I always prefer to overspice rather than underspice, as you might have guessed. A dash of lemon juice - very important if the fruit is, as this was, a bit bland. You want tartness. The crucial thing is the cornflour, which soaks up the juice from the fruit and makes that lovely pie-fillingness. I think I used a Tablespoon, here - but you have to use your judgement as to how juicy the fruit looks.
The lattice is just how it looks. You cut strips of pastry, and weave them, starting from one corner of the pie: one strip going one way, then one going the other way, then the first way, then the second way, weaving them in as you go. Only when it's all in place do you attach the ends of the strips to the main crust.
Bake: I usually go with 450 degrees, Gas mark 8, for ten mins, then down to 350 or Gas mark 4. Give it an hour and see if the insides are bubbling up nicely. It there's no bubbling it isn't done yet.
Allow to cool. Wash down with lashings of Marsala.
And coffee.
Oh, and on this pie I brushed the whole crust with egg, beaten with a little milk; but sometimes I just sprinkle conammon-sugar all over it. Easier, and nice, but not shiny!
I do hope you realise there's a Fifth Avenue in San Diego too. And a youth hostel there, right in the midst of expensive outdoor cafes. I felt enormously important walking up to the front door with my key. Quite superior in fact, those posh bums were only visitors, I LIVED THERE.
Okay, I'll give your recipe a go, but I'll have to skip the lattice; too complicated. I've seen easier things to nut out in computer instruction.
Robert.
Is a Boston cream pie what we call a Boston bun here? It's a large round bun with some dried fruit in it, plus partly solid cream and coconut over the top. Very popular.
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