Greek Farmer's Market Squash Meets Classic American Dessert

Part- sometimes most- of the pleasure of living abroad is the food. But there is no reason to forget a traditional dish from home. Nostalgia made with fresh things in your new world hits just the right note, like this pie- a holiday standard in our old country, usually with canned pumpkin, and perfectly fine. But it can be better- imagine silky flan enriched with roasted squash, baked in a flaky butter shell. We have fabulous winter squash in Greece- abundance is the mother of invention.

A squash always sits ready on the terrace-
a tiny Botero to catch the afternoon light.

The recipe takes a little planning, as we first need to roast the squash. There will be lots of squash- use the rest to make these gnocchi, or freeze for later.

We will need:

500 g/ 2 generous cups squash puree

450 ml/ 2 C canned milk

1 1/2 to 2 C sugar (depending on the sweetness of the squash)

6 eggs
2 or 3 tablespoons rum or whiskey 

1 tsp. salt

1 tsp. cinnamon

1/2 tsp. ginger

a pinch of ground cloves

a few gratings of nutmeg

one pie crust (this recipe will be more than enough for a very generous pie dish), rolled out.

Line your largest, deepest pie dish (we used the classic Emile Henry 25 cm/10") with the dough, trim evenly all around with kitchen shears, and crimp however you wish.

Using a stick blender or electric mixer, blend the filling ingredients, using the lower amount of sugar. Taste, add more sugar if you need it, and maybe some more spice. Be gentle- the squash has a rich, delicate flavor that would be a shame to hide. 

Bake on the oven's lowest rack at 170 C/ 350 F for 45 minutes to an hour- it will jiggle, but a knife put into the center should just come out clean. The puffed filling will settle down and firm as it cools. When cold, it slices beautifully, and this crust will be flaky and crisp- quite a trick with a flan filling. 

Feeling a little lazy? Make only the filling and bake it in one large dish or several cups in a bain marie. 

Serve either with whipped cream- freshly beaten and just barely sweet if you want some sophistication, or sprayed from a can if you want to lighten things up.

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Apple Pie with Beurre Noisette and Rum in a Classic Lattice Crust.

The casually Baroque galette has become our pie of choice in its single-crust simplicity. With the first of the pink ladies though, only this classic lattice topped americana will do.

Any apples would be delicious, but these are our new favorite. For years we favored the granny smith for its tartness, but these have all that too, plus they are complicated and spicy. Apples collapse when baked- in a lattice pie this leaves quite a gap. Sauteing the apples briefly in butter does two things- the apples collapse into dense suppleness, and they become infused with the flavor of butter. So much butter also changes the pie's direction. There is just a hint of cinnamon and nutmeg in a nod to the classic combination. The fullness of the favor is carried by the browned butter. With that, rum is a natural pairing (Trader Vic's hot buttered rum, butter-rum lifesavers... ). A little vanilla adds even more depth.

             

 

We will need (for our largest pie tin), for the crust:

300 g/ 2 1/2 C flour

1/2 tsp. salt  

1 tablespoon sugar

250 g/ a little over 2 sticks butter, frozen

1/2 C ice water

Mix the dry ingredients in a bowl, grate in the frozen butter n the large holes of a box grater, tossing occasionally to keep them each as separate flour-coated strands, and then sprinkle in the water, slowly, with one hand as you toss with the other (as we did here). Shape into two disks, one slightly larger than the other, wrap in plastic, and refrigerate.

For the filling:

2 K/ 4 pounds apples- about 15-16 medium apples

100 g butter

a shot glass full of rum

vanilla extract or the seeds from a vanilla pod (homemade here)

a small pinch of cinnamon, a light grating of nutmeg (marvelous with the rum)

a  pinch of flaky salt

250 g/ 1 1/4 C raw demerara sugar (white  sugar would be fine if that is all you have but the raw sugar is perfect here), plus more to taste

50 g/ scant 1/2 C flour

Divide the apples into fourths, remove the core from each piece, and slice crosswise, like this:

It will seem like more apples than you could ever need,but they will cook down in this step and be just right. Melt half of the butter and brown it over medium heat, stirring all the while so none of the brown specks have a chance to blacken. Add half of the apples and saute until they are evenly wilted. Add the sugar, rum, vanilla, salt, and spices.

Transfer the apples into a large bowl to cool. Rinse the pan clean, and repeat with the other half of the apples, transferring this batch to the same bowl. Blend and test for seasoning and sugar. 

When the apple mixture is cool, add the flour and mix gently. Heat the oven to 200 C/ 400 F.  Roll out the larger disk of chilled pie  crust and drape it into the pie dish. Use scissors to trim  the excess and put it aside.

Squash the second disk into a rectangle and roll it out longer rather than wide, to cut strips from for the lattice, using a fluted cutter if you have one:

Arrange the strips as you like- we use a traditional weave, lifting strips as necessary to get the desired effect:

Your weave can be as close or as open as you like, the strips of dough wide or narrow. When the weave is complete, trim again, fold the crust into a neat edge, and crimp as you like:

The crust will puff beautifully as it bakes and any imperfections, as you see  here, will be perfect when gold from the oven. I wet the strips with water and dust a little more sugar over for extra sparkle.

Bake the pie on a  low rack, checking often after a half an hour to make sure nothing blackens, but do not be  surprised if your pie takes as much as an hour to be golden all over:

We had ours warm with vanilla ice cream, then cold for breakfast.

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Stunning Flaky Galette in an Hour- Miraculous Low Tech Perfect Pastry Dough.

Efficiency may be sometimes necessary, but rarely desirable- certainly not the hallmark of a culture, or of a well-lived life. Our house is full of complication and chaos and generally elaborate goings-on. Physical life is a messy business (eh bien!), and no one wants to miss out. 

Not shying away from fuss or festivity in our house, complicated desserts like the dacquoise or tall layered cake or Paris-Brest show up regularly. But our table is sadly rather often pie-less. The truth is that pie crust is a tricky thing to get just right and easy to get wrong- overworked, tough- and particularly in the heat of summer when you'd want it most. But just this week I read a recipe for (Southern, not British) biscuits in the new issue of Cooks Illustrated, using a method that I remember using for pie crust a couple for decades ago and although it worked like a charm I forgot about it simply because it was at a time in life when the acquisition of new dishes was ever increasing. It is a delight to have it back, especially now that the plums are in- the finest of pie fruits baking up all jammy. Not so very much separates the poor dacquoise from the excellent one. Fruit pies on the other hand command a huge spectrum- The worst (and plenty to be had of them) are dreadful, the best are sublime, and so simple looking no one can imagine the effort and skill they so discretely display.

I love not schlepping the food processor around and washing it too. This recipe, suitable for even the hottest day, uses a hunk of frozen butter, and a simple box grater- the frozen butter is grated directly into your flour mixture and tossed up with it before it has a chance to even thaw, and some ice water is drizzled in with one hand while the other does more tossing and when you can just hold it together it is done, still cold- so cold that the only chill it needs is the quick rest in the refrigerator when you prepared the filling.

It is essential that small pieces of solid butter are dispersed throughout the dough- they melt, create steam, and this makes for flakiness. The right moment can be elusive. Not with the box grater though- this is foolproof- all the satisfaction on a hand tossed dough, none of the risk and frustration.

For our pie today we used:

250 g/ 2 C flour

3/4 tsp. salt

1 tablespoon sugar

170 g/ 3/4 C butter, frozen solid

80 ml/more or less a 1/3 C ice water

1 K/ 6 C plums

40 g/ 1/3 C flour

200 g/ 1 C sugar- if your fruit is quite sweet to taste, use a little less

a dash of salt

some vanilla and some bitter almond

or

a few gratings of fresh nutmeg and a little cinnamon

3 Tablespoons of coarse sugar- like demerara, for the top of the crust

Freezing the butter is essential. Keeping butter in the freezer is great anyway, pie or not- it keeps fresh for months and months, and thaws quickly when you need it. Having everything chilled, especially on a warm day, makes it easier to work with and turns out a perfect product. Mix the flour with the salt and sugar (if it is a very hot day, freeze this, too). Grate the butter on the large holes of a box grater directly into the flour, giving it a toss mid-way through, and tossing again so the butter is in separate long pieces, evenly distributed throughout the flour. This takes about half a minute.

Toss the butter into the flour right away- that pretty tangle of separate strips of butter will quickly meld together.

Have ice water (truly with ice cubes- the colder the better) ready. While the one hand tosses the flour and butter mixture, the other hand drizzles in the chilled water. 80 ml/ 1/3 C should be enough for it to make a dough that just holds together when pressed into a ball, if not, add another spoonful. Make sure to get all the way down to the bottom of the bowl. Pat gently into a rough disk, wrap in plastic and put in the refrigerator until you need it or, if you are using it right away, in the freezer while you prepare the fruit. When you are ready to roll out the dough and assemble the galette, heat the oven to 200 C/400 F- pie needs a nice hot oven to crisp the crust.

Cut the plums, pit them, and leave them in rough chunks of varying size. Here we have 2 varieties- tiny Italian prune-plums and larger red plums. Add the sugar, flour, flavorings, and a small dash of salt, and toss together.

To make a simple pie even simpler, roll the dough out directly on the parchment the pie will be baked on. Cut a square of non-stick baking paper the size of your largest flat pan, put it on the counter, and flour it and the surrounding counter very well. Put the disk of dough in the middle, flour it also, and roll to about half again as large as the pie you want. 

You need a little structure to hold in all fruit-  don't roll  too thin.The edges will spread beyond the paper. Carefully transfer the paper and disc of dough on to the baking sheet, pile the fruit into the center leaving a large border of dough around it, and fold these sides in, any which way. Clean any fruit/sugar juices off your hands first- any on the crust will blacken like coal in the oven.

Although much simpler to shape and so much more informal than a crimped and fluted crusted pie, this casual messy galette is no less elegant. Uncontained, it has glorious dimensions. It is a fine option when making a 2-crusted fluted and lattice topped classic pie would simply be overwhelming.

Not necessary, but dazzling and easy and very delicious is to coat the crust with coarse sugar before baking. Wet your hands, pat the surface of the crust all over, and sprinkle generously with coarse sugar. 

The surface of the crust will puff up all beautifully golden as it bakes-

Bake for certainly 40 minutes and they sometimes need nearly an hour- the crust should be richly golden all over, not at all browned. Watching during the last 10 or 15 minutes of baking. The thickened juices will have invariable gushed out in one or two spots- this is the most delicious part of the pie- scrape them up with a spoon and serve them with each piece. If you leave them they will turn to a chewy sheet of intense fruit essence.

Ours has collapsed altogether here on the right-
rolling the crust thicker would have prevented this. 

This is a fabulous last-minute dessert made of any stone fruits or apples or pears you have around (pears are very delicious like this), or berries- a mix is also nice. You can slip it into the oven while you are at the table and have it warm and smelling of butter for dessert. But nothing is so nice as cold pie for breakfast.

The same crust, doubled:

Apple Pie with Rum and Beurre Noisette

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Rich Zesty Tomato Pie... How Pleasure Works

Verve, juice, crunch, tang- this is a pie humble only in effort and expense. The basil on the veranda is fragrant and thriving, and the tomatoes at the market heavy and firm. Abundance has lowered their price. They have been on all of our summer tables. In this dish, they star.

Greek baking features a dazzling host of grand variations of the pie ("pita"- like in "spanakopita")- sweet and savory, grand and individual- with fillings nearly as diverse as nature itself. This pie we're having today is very Greek in that it celebrates the generosity of the season, but apart from that it is inspired only my love of the zesty satisfaction of hot tomatoes- a love perhaps more 1950's red sauce Italian than Greek, and the profusion of large leafed basil, pointing again to Italy. Far more substantial than a pizza, but not at all heavy, warm, fragrant, crisp-crusted and golden, it makes a rustic and elegant main dish and will not keep you long near the hot oven.

We will need:

Anything you like for crust- by all means your own hand-rolled phyllo if you like, but I used here some "Perek"- these are crackling dried rounds of thin dough that can be moistened to use as layers of rustic phyllo. 6 come in a pack- this is plenty. One could also use lavash- any type of carpet bread. We need just the three layers on top and on the bottom, and so will be using much less butter than traditional crust calls for.

Perek or Lavash

100 g/ 3.5 oz butter

1 k/ 2 generous lb. of tomatoes

a large bunch of fresh basil

250 g/ half a pound feta

an egg

pepper, and some salt to taste

Wash the tomatoes and put them in a pan on the top rack, with the heat on 200 C/ 400 F- this will blacken their skins and concentrate their juices. Check after 15 or 20 minutes (and throw anything else in on another rack that may need some heat- sliced onions to roast for another dish, stale bread for crumbs or croutons, etc.) The charred skins will slip off easily, and the tomatoes will be surrounded by their golden, thickened juices. While the tomatoes are roasting, melt the butter.

Turn the oven down to 180 C/ 375 F. Assembling the pie will take not five minutes: Coarsely crumble the feta into a bowl, tear the basil leaves and add them along to the feta along with the egg to bind it and as many of the skinned tomatoes as you like (but not the liquid they have shed- save that for a sauce or a stock or a gazpacho)- tomatoes make up the bulk of our red and juicy pie. Salt and pepper this to taste (the heat of freshly ground black pepper is most welcome).

Moisten the brittle perek sheets with water if you are using them. Brush a baking sheet with some melted butter and lay on it one sheet of perek or lavash, brush that generously with butter, sprinkle with salt, and repeat this with two more sheets. Spread the filling over it, leaving some room at the edges:

Cover with the remaining 3 sheets, brushing butter on each and salting lightly, saving plenty of butter for the top (melt more if you need to- use as much as you like. I found the 100 g to be enough, and I am lavish with butter). Score the pie and put it into the hot oven. 20 minutes should see it golden and crisp. The phyllo is thin and already baked so one needn't have the oven on as long as for a pie made with an uncooked dough- a very great advantage in the heat of  summer.

The generous proportion of filling and the juicy tomatoes give the pie the feel of a main dish- we had it as such, but it was also excellent as a snack later on at room temperature, listening to D'Angelo and rereading a 'dessert' book- Paul Bloom's delightful How Pleasure Works. Instant gratification linked all these substantial pleasures.

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Summer Stone Fruit Galette (at last!)

After that go-round with the apricot cake that had started out as a galette I couldn't get them out of my mind, galettes. I've always loved our American-style fruit pies in a pie dish, and I have a pie dish, and like doing a lattice. But the thinness of the galette seems to ensure 2 of the most important characteristics of a fine pie- a bottom crust that has some crispness, and an ample surface area for the thickened and intensified juices of the fruit to spill over and gum up nicely.

We're still working on that one week's shopping, albeit slowly (Boutique Shopping a la Ellinka post)- enough of the fruit in the pyramid has gone nice and ripe.

In the heat, they perfume the veranda

While I was in San Francisco my mother laid a newspaper clipping on the counter (we keep them later in manila folders and randomly pull things out) of a picture perfect blueberry pie and there was a little cornmeal in the crust and I used the crust for a galette not of blueberries but of rhubarb- brief of season and so beguilingly, mysteriously astringent with a little whisper of bitter (and unknown in Greece). It was truly ideal. Now my mother can't find the clipping and key words are not producing it online, but it was easy enough to remember: 

In the bowl of the food processor I put a generous cup and a half of flour, a tablespoon or two of sugar, 1/3 C of yellow cornmeal and 3/4 of a C (180 g) of salted butter (had it not been salted I'd have added a small spoonful of salt). when we blend this with a pastry blender. Common wisdom says to aim for pieces the size of small peas, but as we will add the water later pulse by pulse, the butter will continue to get cut up smaller and smaller, so I pulse until the butter is the size of large lima beans. This is where I was too hasty before- the ice water (Really, it is not so much trouble, It's worth getting out a couple of ice cubes to cool it down- cold crust made of cold things stays more crispy and is much easier to work with). I just needed about 3 Tablespoons (40-45 ml), drizzled in while pulsing on and off. It will look crumbly and like it is too dry to hold together, but pinch a little and you'll see that it does just fine.

See how it still looks a little dry?

I gathered the dough into a small disc and wrapped it in plastic and set it in the refrigerator to chill while I set about preparing the fruit. I simply gathered everything that was getting soft (perhaps some 20 pieces- nectarines and apricots in a mix), cut the fruit off the pit directly over a bowl so as to not let the juices go to waste. There were about 4 or 5 cups of fruit pieces, to which I added 3 or 4 large spoonfuls of flour, then sugar to taste (half a cup/100g?). I find vanilla extract is alluring and delicious with stone fruits, bringing out the essence of their floral beginning. Bitter almond is also a good choice- this to conjure the essence of the seeds inside the apricot pits. Or try hard liquor- dark rum is lovely with any fruit and leaves such a rich aftertaste. Soon we'll want to ready a hot oven- 200 C/400 F.

I shook a little handful of flour between my fingers over the counter top and rolled out the cold dough quickly, lifting it with a dough

A marble rolling pin stays nice and cool.

scraper or spatula to make sure it isn't sticking and adding more flour where it was sticking. The result is a lopsided round of dough with jagged edges- perfect for our purposes. I did not roll it too thin- it needs to be sturdy enough to transfer to the baking sheet and to contain the heavy fruit. I folded the (again very well-floured) dough in half, then half again to make a quarter of a round which is easier to move to the parchment lined baking sheet. There,  just unfold it, and pile the fruit into the middle:

Our spontaneous, casual summer pie, all crisp ragged edges and oozy fruit

You can see how rough the sides are- no matter at all- this adds to its charm. I then folded the edges over the filling, repairing large holes with scraps of dough. For me, an indispensable final touch is to wet the dough with water (not the fruit juices!- the will turn black and bitter as tar in the oven), and throw sugar over it in large spoonfuls here and there. The natural large-crystalled brown sugar is ideal for this- it is coarse enough to keep some sparkle in the hot oven, and has a delicate but very definite flavor. It bakes very hot until it takes on a lovely color- half an hour or more? They need a bit of watching. The kitchen swells with its butter and fruit fragrance.

This is not the galette I have been writing about- see it is red- it's the rhubarb galette from California. See the sugar crystals though? That's just regular white table sugar. With the other sugar I mentioned it's even sparklier and more mellow tasting. The galette you saw here before baking went into a pastry box just minutes after coming from the oven, and was taken to the beach, where it was refrigerated and dug into with forks straight out of the box the next day, very un-photogenic but not less delicious.

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