Tuesday, November 23, 2021

apple pie: disaster and potential recovery

Pie-making isn't without its setbacks. I suffered a pie-shell-related disaster, but since it didn't affect the pie filling, it wasn't a complete fiasco. I used my remaining pie dough to make a (very pretty, in my opinion) new pie shell; it was smaller than the original pie shell, but that was fine. I scooped as much pie filling into it as I could (a bit more than half), closed the pie with the dough covering, cut vents, egg-washed the pie surface, sprinkled turbinado sugar over the whole thing, and now, my baby is baking away. (Maybe I should rephrase that less morbidly.) The remaining pie filling will be made into an apple cobbler, so I'm working on that now. Waste not, want not, right? Photos to follow soon, assuming all goes well, and things don't scorch too much. I remember that line from Juzo Itami's "Tampopo," where one Japanese guy says, about French cooking, that it's "a constant battle with burns." He could have said that about much Western cooking in general: there's always a fear that something, somewhere, is going to end up overcooked. More soon.

ADDENDUM: I still have the wrecked pie shell, which tastes delicious but is semi-raw. I'm going to bake it a bit further, then serve it on the side as a sort of 못나니 (ugly, misbegotten) dessert. Should I make some sort of dipping sauce?



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