Summer Roll Pie

My intended submission to the MLFB pie challenge was an adaption of this Five-Spice Apple Quince pie recipe from Epicurious. I wanted to make it into mini pies with a new crust recipe I'm working on that is partially whole wheat. That plan fell flat when I found my stored quince were becoming mealy. I went ahead and used them anyway but I was further disappointed that the quince flavor completely overwhelmed the amount of spice called for in the original recipe. Even when I doubled the spice, it wasn't noticeable. The resulting hand pies were edible but nothing special. So I went in an entirely different direction...

In my food blog browsing, I saw a recipe for a Vietnamese-inspired summer roll salad. Experimenting with this recipe seemed like a great idea for our "Summer in January" get together. I've made summer rolls several times and love them but making them is a labor intensive process. The pie version is more like a rice paper decorated salad. I liked that I could keep the same flavors as a summer roll with a lot less work. It felt like tapping my inner Sandra Lee, an amusing change of pace for me. To warn you, this recipe is definitely still a work in progress. I think there might be a better vegetable combination and the tofu could easily be substituted with shrimp or other protein. For a vegan version, you could season the vinegar or lime juice with a little sugar and salt and eliminate the fish sauce. Here's what I did for Saturday's get together.

Vegetable Summer Roll Pie
Inspired by Hey what's for dinner mom?
Makes enough for 10-12 servings, fills a 10-inch deep dish pie plate

9-10 6-inch rice papers, less if using larger papers
1 jicama, about the size of two fists together
2 medium carrots
1 1/2 cups snow peas
10 ounces of firm fresh tofu
3 tablespoons rice vinegar (If I had it I would have used lime juice instead.)
1-2 teaspoons fish sauce, to taste (nam-pla or nuoc-mam)
a small bunch of mint, washed and dried
spray oil (I really like Spectrum grape seed oil spray. It gives the cleanest taste.)
cashew butter sauce (recipe follows)

-Trim, peel and finely julienne the jicama and carrots, I used a mandoline. Trim the stem ends from the snow peas, stack and thinly slice on the bias. Thinly slice (chiffonade) some of the mint to get ~2 tablespoons of sliced mint. Set aside the vegetables and mint in separate piles.
-Slice the tofu into 1/4 inch slabs. Heat a skillet or griddle. After the griddle is hot, spray with oil and lay the tofu in a single layer. Lightly brown the tofu on both sides then remove.
-Bring out your pie plate and fill another pie plate (or large bowl) with a inch or two of hot water. One by one soften the rice papers in the hot water and cover the bottom of the pie plate. I worked in an overlapping flower pattern and used 5 papers to line the bottom of the dish.
-In a large bowl, stir together the vinegar (or lime juice) and fish sauce. Toss the jicama in this dressing and remove, giving a little shake to remove excess dressing. Place the jicama in a layer in the lined pie plate and sprinkle evenly with the sliced mint.
-Toss the carrots in the fish sauce dressing and again remove shaking off excess dressing. Place the carrots in a layer on top of the mint and jicama.
-Place the sliced snow peas as the final vegetable layer. I would suggest not dressing them because they are more likely to get soggy and limp. I only dressed the jicama and carrots.
-Cut the cooked slabs of tofu into halves or quarters and spread a small amount of cashew sauce on one side. Place the sauce side down in a layer in the pie. Get as decorative as you'd like, this is the part that will show through the top rice paper.
-When all the tofu is placed, lay whole mint leaves over the top. Use as many as you'd like.
-Soften a sheet of rice paper and carefully place it over the center of the pie. Soften more sheets, cut them in half and cover the edges, rolling the edges from the bottom layer of rice paper together with the top layer pieces until the top is covered.
-Chill until serving then slice into wedges and serve with additional cashew sauce on the side.

Cashew Butter Sauce
My slight changes to this recipe from Steamy Kitchen
Makes ~3/4 cup

2 teaspoons neutral oil
3 cloves garlic, finely grated or pressed (a microplane is great for this)
1/2 to 1 whole Thai bird chile, seeded and finely minced
1/4 cup hoisin sauce
4 tablespoons roasted cashew butter
a splash of fish sauce
1/4-1/3 cup water

-Cook the garlic and chile in the oil until fragrant.
-Add the hoisin, cashew butter and fish sauce to the garlic oil. Stir over low heat, the warmth will soften the fats in the cashew butter and help it incorporate easier.
-Add enough water to make a thick mayonnaise consistency. Taste for seasoning and add more fish sauce for salt and more chile for more heat.
-Store extra sauce in a jar in the refrigerator.

*Random pie related link If you were the baker would this bother you?

Pie!

I cannot make or eat pie because the fuckers gals over at Weight Watchers have me on 1400 calories a day and a piece of pie is like 7000 calories and so I couldn't eat the rest of the week. BUT, I can still post my pie crust recipe because posting on a blog burns about 16 calories, or so they say.

Adapted from Heirloom Baking with the Brass Sisters.

Sheila's Pie Crust (makes dough for 1 double crust 9" pie or 2 single crust 8" pies)

2.5 cups flour
1/3 cup sugar
1/4 t salt
1 c cold butter, cut into 1/2 inch dice
1/4 cup ice water

To make the pastry, place the flour, sugar and salt in the bowl of a food processor fitted with a metal blade. Pulse a few times to mix. Add butter and pulse until crumbly. Add water. Pulse until the mixture "comes together, right now, over me".

Remove the dough from the processor, divide in half and shape each half into a disk. Roll it out. Put in pie pan and bake pie according to directions.

I won't get into how to put this into a pie pan, as I kind of use the "roll out and pray" method. If it doesn't quite make it, I just put the pieces into the pie pan in sort of a haphazard way. It still tastes delicious.

If you have extra crust, put some butter and cinnamon on it and roll it up. Bake alongside the pies for a lovely little treat.

The Quest for Black Bottom Pie

I grew up in the South so was fed a steady diet of meringue-topped pies, usually custard of some type with lightly browned meringue on top. I loved them all, lemon, chocolate, banana cream of course. But one day in a cafeteria in Oklahoma City I had a pie that became my picture of the ideal pie - a black bottom pie. It had an intensely chocolate layer topped by a light creamy layer and I thought it was the best thing I ever had. Trouble was, we didn't have the recipe.

About a year ago I thought again of this mirage and went on a quest to find the real black bottom pie. I read that this is a Southern specialty that has its own myths around it, though it is thought to have originated with a hotel in Louisiana. Many stories and recipes exist. I liked the one about the math professor in a conservative Christian college whose secret recipe for the pie he always brought was never divulged until after his death, because of the rum used in the recipe. Marjorie Rawlings, in Cross Creek Cookery (a bible of authentic Southern cooking from 1942), declared, "I hope to be propped up on my dying bed and fed a generous portion. Then I think that I should refuse outright to die, because life would be too good to relinquish."

I combined what I considered to be the most authentic and also the most tasty aspects of several recipes, including one from a restaurant in Oklahoma City that was probably the progenitor of my Eureka pie. A couple of notes: I consider the ginger snap crust to be essential. There are recipes out there using baked pie crusts, graham cracker crusts, chocolate cookie or even (horrors) Oreo crusts, and from Martha Stewart one using French pastry (pâté brisée) crust. Trust me. Use ginger snaps. Also, the darker and denser the chocolate you use for the bottom layer, the better. Also, this contains raw egg whites, so use precautions and skip this recipe if that concerns you.

Black Bottom Pie

Crust: Roll 8 oz of ginger snaps until crushed. Should make 1 ½ cups of crumbs. Mix with 5 T melted butter. Pat into a 9 inch pie pan. Bake 10 min at 300° F. Cool.

Custard:

Separate 4 eggs. Beat the yolks.
Scald 2 cups milk in a double boiler. Stir in egg yolks slowly. Add ½ cup sugar and 1 ½ t cornstarch. Cook with stirring till thick. Remove from heat. Remove 1 cup and keep separate.

Chocolate layer: Melt 2 squares of good unsweetened chocolate (the denser the better) and mix with the 1 cup of reserved custard. Add 1 t vanilla to the cooled custard and pour carefully into the gingersnap crust.

Meringue layer: Blend 1 envelope (or 1 T) gelatin with 4 T cold water. Mix with remaining hot custard.

Beat 4 egg whites until nearly stiff, then gradually beat in ½ c sugar mixed with ¼ t cream of tartar. Add 2 T rum. Mix carefully into cooled custard/gelatin mixture. Tip into crust over chocolate layer. Chill.

Top: Shortly before serving, Beat 1 cup heavy cream until it stands up in peaks. Add 1 T confectioner’s sugar. Cover custard with cream and use a spoon to coax it into peaks. Grate semisweet chocolate over the top, but not to cover, only to ornament.

And yes, I did make this and it was delicious. I can't do it again without 7 people to share it with, though. Did it satisfy my fantasy? Since I no longer have 15-year-old tastebuds, I'm afraid my response was more analytical than paradisical. But it did seem to match my memory.

Our First Michigan Lady Food Blogger Challenge is: PIE

Because pie holds an important place in bringing us together as families, neighbors, and even as a nation, I hope anyone who is interested will accept the challenge to bake, share and enjoy a pie this month. Sweet, savory, and "creative" pies are included in this challenge. To accept this pie challenge, please post a recipe, your favorite historical pie fact, and if possible, a photo of your creation.  For extra credit, make 2 pies and give one to someone deserving. 

In promoting National Pie Day on January 23rd, the National Pie Council says "this is a perfect opportunity to pass on the love and enjoyment of pie eating and pie making to future generations."  Since the end of our ability to make and share a warm homemade pie will surely mean the end of civilization as we know it, let us do our utmost to create the world as it should be - a world replete with homemade pie. 

New York Times 1902

"It is utterly insufficient (to eat pie only twice per week), as anyone who knows the secret of our strength as a nation and the foundation of our industrial supremacy must admit. Pie is the American synonym of prosperity, and its varying contents the calendar of the changing seasons. Pie is the food of the heroic. No pie-eating people can ever be permanently vanquished."