Today may be America’s National Pie Day and even though they might know how to whip up a delicious pie or five, here at Food Network UK we think the upper crust of British pastries are fabulous enough to triumph over quintessential American creations.
With the UK’s repertoire of gorgeously retro bakes, we think we have what it takes to challenge our friends across the pond at Cooking Channel to a battle of the pies.
The Little Pie Company's Three Berry Pie
Pie is one of the symbols of Americana – it has a focus in almost every season (pumpkin and apple in the fall, blueberry and strawberry in the summer), has worked its way into our daily lexicon (It’s easy as pie!), and for me, represents the very notion of “being American.”
Growing up overseas, my family and I returned to Michigan every summer to a lakeside cottage. I remember my dad rolling out his homemade dough for a flaky strawberry rhubarb pie, or a French style tart dotted with blueberries, fanned out strawberry slices and rounds of kiwi.
Posted in Savoury, Sweet, Where We Eat, Where We’ve Been
Tagged cupcake, four & twenty blackbirds, little pie company, pie
This week, for the first time ever, I bought a block of lard.
It was in the supermarket, stowed amongst the butters – an unbranded white brick in a sea of yellows, silvery blues and cows. I quickly concealed it beneath some pancetta and flat leaf parsley: as words go ‘Lard’, written plainly across the middle, doesn’t have much going for it. Would the shelf stacker think I was a lard ass? Would the security man mark me out as a lardball? Why not just print ‘PIG FAT’ and be done with it?
But I just wanted to see. I have been trying to identify the all-time best method simply for frying an egg. I’ve experimented with lids and steam, with high and low heats, and I’ve worked with butter, oil, bacon fat and combinations of the three. But looking through the older cookbooks – the Mrs Beetons and the Delias – they know nothing of these modern ways. Only lard will do, they insist.
And perhaps, with the recent angst over harmful man-made trans fats, the time for an old school, traditional and more or less natural fat has returned. It is, further research tells me, the secret to an unbelievably flaky pie crust, or a mouth-wateringly tasty piece of fried chicken. Not only that, at around forty percent saturated fat it has twenty percent less than that darling of 21st century cooking, butter, and twice as much in the way of monounsaturated fat – the good stuff. Olive oil is admittedly more virtuous but it is also more expensive, often has a more imposing flavour and aren’t there times when it’s best just to live a little?
This weekend, I reluctantly unwrapped my purchase. A plain white odourless block. I took a butter knife, cut off a small slice and heated it up in a pan. It melted down into a useful grease – my egg slid around as if on ice skates; the ‘over easy’ flip was easier than ever and my egg was a textbook specimen. No evidence whatsoever of its shameful secret.
Perhaps I have arrived late to this particular party. Perhaps you’re reading this, shruggingly, over an insanely delicious lard and butter sandwich. But for me, from now on, my lard block will sit proudly at the very top of my shopping basket, for all to see.
By M. Cosworth
Christmas is a time when no justification is needed to indulge ourselves in copious amounts of sweets and chocolate, and this all starts on the 1st December with the advent calendar. This has evolved from a humble calendar containing little pieces of chocolate concealed behind 24 cardboard windows, to now, when every chocolate is massive. In some cases people have been known to go through more than one calendar during the festive season and I myself know of one person that dose this every year given the chance! I’m not mentioning any names but you know who you are.
But it doesn’t have to be just chocolate! There are so many sweet treats for us to choose from: mince pies, Christmas cake, gingerbread, medjool dates, the list goes on and on. I don’t know about you but I find a lot of sweet things at Christmas tend to be very heavy and all very dark in colour, so let’s try and lighten things up a bit. Why not try making rice porridge for breakfast this weekend with a cranberry and orange compote and then in the afternoon for coffee break you could make this cardamom, apricot and blueberry pie. Once made it will last 3 days in an air tight container.
Cardamom, apricot and blueberry pie. Serves 10
Ingredients:
4oz unsalted butter
4oz caster sugar
4oz self raising flour
2 free range eggs
5g baking powder
10g ground cardamom
1 tin of peaches in fruit juice
250g blueberries (fresh or frozen)
A handful of cashew nuts roughly chopped
Method:
In a large mixing bowl or food processor – but it’s not as much fun- cream the butter and sugar together (make sure that the butter and eggs are at room temperature or the mix will split) then slowly add the eggs, fold in the sifted self-raising flour, baking powder and ground cardamom and it’s as simple as that!
Butter a grease proof tin, dust with flour then just poor the mix in and spread even. Arrange the fruits and nuts on top and cook in a hot oven on 165 or gas mark 5 for 30 minutes. To check if the cake is cooked push the tip of a knife into the centre of the cake and if it comes out clean then it’s cooked. Once cooked, remove from the tin and rest on a cooling rack and dust with icing sugar then portion.
By Gordon Jones
Posted in Other
Tagged apricot, blueberry, breakfast, butter, cardamon, cashew nuts, caster sugar, chocolate, christmas, Christmas cake, compote, cranberry, dates, December, eggs, food processor, gingerbread, mince pies, mixing bowl, orange, peaches, pie, rice porridge, self raising flour, sweets
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