Category Archives: Ali Piltch

Caramelized onion, mushroom, and gruyere quiche with oat crust

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http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/ellie-krieger/caramelized-onion-mushroom-and-gruyere-quiche-with-oat-crust-recipe.html

I think the most perplexing thing about this recipe was the crust.  There were two issues I saw with it.  The first is that the recipe really did not seem to make enough to cover the pie dish.  When I got it as thin as possible, it still probably only covered about 3/4 of the pie pan. I ended up making a double recipe and used nearly all of it.  Additionally, there wasn’t much liquid in the recipe, and it broke apart very easily.  I ended up putting the crust in piece by piece instead of all in one piece, and it split some in the oven.  As someone pointed out, fortunately the egg probably fills in the crevices.

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I was surprised by just how much the quiche cooked down.  Because I am still having some trouble wrapping my mind around savory pies more generally (although I have loved trying them all so far!), I thought quiche was a nice middle ground. I was surprised how little mushroom was really in the quiche; although once it cooked, there certainly seemed to be a lot more in there.  I’m excited to see how it comes out.  I feel like there might be a fine line in quiche for texture, so I hope I got the line right!

Blackberry-Apple Pie

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I was excited about this pie because I really enjoyed the blackberry pie we had earlier this semester (my first blackberry pie), and I love a good old-fashioned apple pie.  I thought this pie was interesting because there was no soaking of the apples in advance.  I simply laid the the apples and the blackberries into the crust.  There was no suggestion on how to place the apples and blackberries into the crust, so I tried to layer them some. I wonder how much of a difference in taste there is depending on the fruit layers.  I was happy that I learned my lesson with the sauce to turn it down really low.  Last time I allowed something to stay on the heat as suggested by the recipe, it burned. If you turned it off all the way, it did thicken a bit too much to pour over, so if taken off the heat, it should be placed back over heat again before spooning over pie.

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This was my first attempt at a lattice, so I was slightly intimidated. My crust was being a little temperamental (I think it sat out of the fridge too long before rolling initially), and peeling off the slices was difficult (despite using the trick of making sure the crust came up on the rolling pin).  I was happy with how the lattice turned out.

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I will say, this one the only pie I’ve made thus far that has taken less time to bake then the recipe said. Although it was only a few minutes less, the pie was certainly bubbling and browning by the 30-minute mark after I turned down the oven.  I’m excited to see how putting the sauce on top affects the tastes since normally it’s mixed first!

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http://allrecipes.com/recipe/apple-blackberry-pie/

 

Fig Goat Cheese Tart

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I have been super into figs recently, and I love cheese, so I decided this would be a perfect pie for me to try.  I decided for a little umph I’d put some nuts into the crust since the topping called for nuts..  Unfortunately, I combined the recipe for the nutty pie crust and the one for the vodka trick, which called for significantly more shortening.  By the time I added the liquid, it was much too wet to be able to roll out, so I decided to make a push-in  tart instead. I’m not totally sure what went wrong with the pastry, but I hope it still tastes good.

I followed the recipe pretty much exactly except with the dried figs, I reconstituted them by pouring boiling water over them and letting them in a bowl for fifteen minutes.  We also didn’t have enough almond slices for the topping, so I ended up putting some pecans in there as well.  I think the topping is sort of interesting because it’s not quite a crumb but it’s made with all crumb-like ingredients with the exception of the slices for little pieces. I also find this pie interesting because it obviously has a lot of sweet components (such as the topping) but also has the basil, so it’s clearly not supposed to be completely dessert-y.  I’ll be interested in seeing how all the flavors come together.

Doing the tart made me slightly confused on the decorative piece. How was I going to do decorations with a tart? I decided to try to lay out the figs in a way that would be decorative.

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But by the time the cheese batter was poured on top and the crumb added, it was hard to see the attempt at some special lay-out…

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We’ll see how it tastes tomorrow!

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http://alwayswithbutter.blogspot.com/2011/11/fig-goat-cheese-pie-with-basil.html

Possible Decorations

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A lot of the recipes I’ve been looking at for this week are single-crust recipes. I have been thinking about adapting the recipes to a double-crust recipe for decoration purposes, but I was excited to see that there are certainly some decoration options for single-crust pies as well. I liked this braid one from pinterest because I think it’s clean-cut while also adding some pizzazz to the pie at the same time.

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Obviously this one is less exciting because it is not adding on top, but I still think it makes it looks slightly nicer.

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I was also thinking that if I did not want to do too much pastry on top, I could do cut outs in a similar way to this one.  I would do different designs, but I think it sort of accomplishes both – not too much pastry if it does not seem to go as well with the recipe but also still makes the pie look more festive. If I were to do something with just designs in the middle such as this, I would probably use a design similar to the one above around the edge.

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As far as having more pastry on top, I think either a regular lattice top or one that’s a little fancier such as this would be interesting.

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I am curious if there were a crumb top on top, what types of decorations we could do with that.  Something I was thinking perhaps making them into discs and laying them out instead of just pouring it on top. I wonder if it’s important for bringing the pie together though to have all of it covered with crumb.

 

Portobello Pot Pie

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http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Portobello-Pot-Pie/

From start to finish, this pie caused me some difficulties (but I’m crossing my fingers that it will still taste good tomorrow!).  I tried the vodka trick. When I first did my pastry, it seemed a little dry, so I put it back in and put a little tiny bit of liquid in.  It proved that even that little bit was too much.  It was sort of dough-like.  Hopefully enough of the vodka burned off that it is more pastry-like.

I think the timing with the recipe was very underestimated.  It took me over an hour-and-a-half or so to prepare everything, and it said it would be thirty minutes (I may just be a slow chopper).  When I did the step of letting the gravy simmer, I actually think it should’ve been taken off the heat.  It burned a little by the time the portobello mushrooms were added.  I wish it had said how long to simmer for.  I may also have been too slow to add, but I wasn’t quite sure how long it should simmer.  I ended up making additional gravy with cooking wine and flour from the burned parts in the pan.  Hopefully it will not taste too burned as the majority of ingredients were not burned.

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I left it in the oven for over sixty minutes – twenty minutes longer than expected.  It still did not seem golden brown to me by the end. I was surprised at how much longer it took.

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I think it is interesting how the mushrooms simply act as a substitute for the chicken here.  I’ll be interested to see how the combination tastes all together because I do not typically think of mushrooms and potatoes together.  Initially when I was looking for a recipe this week, I had a difficult time because I have not had many meat pies other than chicken pot pie. I’m excited to taste everyone’s tomorrow so I can wrap my mind around it better and start to figure out how to bake them my own!

 

Week 1: Sweet pies — complete!

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6 sweet pies for sampling on Thursday noon.

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That would be, from bottom to top: Apple-Pear in Cheddar Crust Pastry (served with melted sharp cheddar on top); Mixed Berry; Very Cranberry Pear; Cider-Infused Apple; Sour Cream Blackberry; and Cranberry Apple Crumb-top pie.

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We seriously questioned whether we would be able to make it through sampling 6 pies—and that was even with half-size slices (1/16 of the whole pie, rather than 1/8). We need to strategize about this for upcoming weeks, when we’ll have 10 pies to sample (or more if people make more than one!)

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Next week: savory pies!

Very Cranberry-Pear Pie

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Considering that everyone says the difficult part of baking is that you have to be so precise, recipes use very imprecise wording. How much larger is a “large… crumb” than a “medium-fine crumb?” Because this was for my topping, it was not as problematic figuring out the “large” crumb, but I did have a difficult time figuring out when to stop pulsing my ingredients. The same was true for cutting up the cranberries. It said only to pulse five or six times until they were cut up well, but five or six times mostly just chopped them in half. Haven’t never baked with cranberries before, I wasn’t sure how small they should be in the pie filling.

Making the actual pastry wasn’t as hard as I expected. However, I think it’ll definitely be several more times before I can recognize the proper consistency on my own.

I was very excited to see it bubbling nicely at the end! (I can’t believe it cooked for 65 whole minutes.) I wasn’t sure how to tell if it was done, but I guess it’s just a lot easier when filling is sticking out a little than when it is completely covered with another pastry. In the notes, it said something about how cranberries can be bitter but balanced with the right amount of sugar. I have never had cranberry or pear pie, so I’m excited to taste it. I also discovered that I don’t like the smell of cardamon very much…