Thursday, August 13, 2009

OK, OK, I'll give up the recipe!

My inbox has been overflowing with requests for my peach pie. I'd like to say that I came up with this one all by myself, but really, I just took Julia Child's pate brisee, some amazing peaches fresh from the farmer's market, and your basic flour, sugar, and cinnamon (well, and more butter!), tweaked it a bit here and there over the years, and here you have it:

Peach Pie, Tigard Barsotti Style
serves my family in one sitting

Pate Brisee:
(from Mastering the Art of French Cooking)
Makes enough for 2 double crusted pies

5 1/4 cups all purpose flour
1 T kosher salt
1 1/2 sticks cold unsalted butter, cut into small cubes
1 3/4 cups solid vegetable shortening, chilled
1 cup ice water

***The key to a tender, flakey crust is starting with VERY cold ingredients. I've been known to chill my flour. I make mine in a food processor, but if you don't have one, you'll need to have a pastry cutter. You do NOT want to over mix.***

Place dry ingredients in food processor fitted with a metal blade, pulse just to mix. Add butter and shortening, and pulse again, just to combine (should resemble cornmeal). Add a teaspoon or so of water at a time until the mixture has curds and clumps and stays together when you squish it between your finger. DO NOT OVER MIX.

Wrap the dough in plastic, chill for at least 4 hours, preferably overnight. You can also freeze pie crust (especially since this recipe makes so much)...just separate the dough into 4 portions, wrap well, and freeze and voila! you've got pie crust for 2 or 4 pies.

To roll out, make sure that the surface and rolling pin are well floured (and if you're very luck, your surface is a cold slab of marble!).

Filling:

6-7 peaches, sliced (you can peel them if you want...to me, it's too much of a PITA)
1/3 cup flour
1/2 cup sugar (or to taste)
1/4 t cinnamon
1/4 t vanilla extract
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, cut into tablespoons

Directions:

Heat oven to 425 degrees

Roll out one disk of pie crust. Gently lay it in your pie pan. Trim edges so that there is about a 1/2 inch of overhang. Put pie plate into the refrigerator while you make the filling.

Mix everything except the butter together gently in a large bowl. Pour into pie plate. Dot with butter. Return to refrigerator.

Roll out second disk of crust. You can either make a lattice, use a pie bird, or make a decorative top with 2 inch rounds of crust - your choice! You could skip a top crust and just make a crumb topping. Whatever you choose, top your pie. If it's some sort of crust, crimp the edges. Brush with cream (the real stuff, people) and sprinkle with sanding sugar.

Bake for an hour.

Cool for at least 2 hours.

Serve warm, preferably with vanilla ice cream.

Go to gym and take an extra spin class to work off all of that butter. Then chase some small children around at the park to work off the sugar.

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