week 35 - Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat - Samin Nosrat

One of the things I was most looking forward to about #cookbookchallenge was creating fancy confections with involved instructions, precise weighing and measuring and the kind of accuracy that normally I have no time for when rustling up dinner. In my mind I imagined embarking on Bake Off-style technical challenges and Food Network-style multi-tiered cakes that resemble anything that isn't actually a cake. But in reality I'm just not patient enough to be a master baker. 

I mean, in a plot twist I could announce that this pie was actually a cake that looked like a pie, but it was definitely a pie. Made from pastry weighed and measured and rolled out by my own hot little hands. And, although it's pretty rustic, I'm also pretty proud of it.

The recipe comes from Samin Nosrat's cult Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat, which also gave us the lockdown hit recipe of the summer; buttermilk brined chicken - I use use semi-skimmed milk with a tablespoon of white vinegar or lemon juice - which sounds like a faff but is actually dead easy if you remember to do it the night before (or even the same morning) and gives the chicken the most incredible bronzed carapace and tender flesh.

Anyway, back to my pie. As well as pastry you need a filling, and what is more classic than good old apple. Our apples were from the allotment, picked by the Ewing's fair hand. For a pie, I think you need an eater (so it doesn't disintegrate too much when baked). Something tart with a bit of crunch is perfect. Good old granny Smiths work, as do Braeburns or a Pink Lady.

I also added a handful of blackberries, as they are were also growing rampant at the allotment when we went to pick the apples. Although I think these are some sort of hybrid - maybe a loganberry? - as they are twice the size of the wild blackberries in our front garden.

And now to the pastry; my bête noire, Although, in all honesty, if I can make decent pastry it must be pretty simple. The key things seem to be get everything cold before you start; don't over-mix - you don't want gluten development as the pastry will be tough, a little vinegar also helps with this - don't add to much water to the dough; and allow the dough to rest before rolling it out. Seeing chunks of butter in the dough is also good, as the water in the butter creates stream when you put the pie in the oven, which expands into little air pockets and creates lovely crisp layers.

While the recipe included instructions to freeze the mixer bowl and the processor blades, as well as the flour and butter chunks, and then to freeze the whole pie again before baking, I skipped all that. You'd be pushed to fit get another pea in our freezer, and it all turned out fine. 

Classic Apple (and Blackberry) Pie with All Butter Pie Dough

300g plain flour

220g butter, cut into chunks - fridge cold or put in the freezer 30 minutes before you start

1 pinch salt

1 tsp cider vinegar

1 tbsp caster sugar

1/2 cup iced water

7 medium eating apples, peeled cored and sliced

handful blackberries, washed and dried

half a lemon

2 tbsp light brown sugar

1/4 tsp ground allspice

1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

2 tbsp double cream (or one egg, beaten)

1 tbsp demerara sugar

Add salt and sugar to the flour, add to the bowl of a food processor. Add butter, a few chunks at a time, and pulse until the butter is in pea-sized pieces.

Add the vinegar and then slowly add the water, pulsing until the mixture just comes together, you might not need it all.

Tip the dough onto a large piece of cling film and bring the sides of the cling film up, squeezing together gently, to shape the dough into ball. Cut the dough into half and flatten each half into a disc. Re-wrap each disc in cling film and place the dough in the fridge, preferably overnight but for at least an hour, to rest.

When you are ready to make the pie, preheat the oven, and a metal baking sheet at 220 C

Place the apples, berries, lemon juice, brown sugar, cinnamon and allspice in a bowl and stir carefully to mix.

Flour a surface and a rolling pin. Unwrap one disc of dough. Roll dough to about the thickness of a pound coin. Use this to line a pie tin – 20-22cm round and 4cm deep – leaving a slight overhang. 

Roll out the second disc to about the same thickness, ready to lay on top of the filling.

Tip the fruit mixture into the pie dish, leaving behind any liquid, which may make the base soggy. Brush a little water around the pastry rim and lay the pastry lid over the apples. Crimp edges or press down with a fork to seal.

Brush the pastry with the cream or beaten egg, and sprinkle over the sugar.

Place the pie on the baking sheet and cook for 15 minutes

Turn the oven down to 200c and cook for another -15/20 minutes

Turn the oven down again to 180c for another 30 - 40 mins (cover the top with foil if it is becoming too brown)

Allow to stand for half an hour before cutting (the most difficult part of the whole recipe) and serve warm or cold with lots of double cream.

King John the Second

Being both greedy and lazy I don't usually write about things twice (I would have also said it's because I avoid repeating myself, but some of you know me in real life...). But a recent weekend at my Mum's, with two meals of beautiful simplicity from my Mum's local, The King John Inn, caused me to reconsider. Well, that and the fact I seem to have  gone home via the pub a lot recently, leading to a reasonable amount of Curry Club and Steak Night, which isn't nearly as photogenic.

The first meal of the weekend wasn't at the pub proper but the Old Cartshed (or village hall to any one not from these parts), a few hundred yards down the road. Pictured above during the Jubilee celebrations.

Once a month, on a Friday night, the locals convene here for fish and chips - pre-ordered and cooked at the King John before being carted down the lane by the locals - and enjoyed with BYO beer and wine and pots of tea, followed by a quiz and then a singalong around the old joanna (I may have made that last detail up). Before returning the pots and pans back to the pub and washing down dinner with a few more ales.

Our motor down was hampered somewhat by sheep in the road, and a little more by roadworks around Basingstoke, but Mum had popped our fish in the oven to stay warm. Despite it's tin foil incineration, the batter carapace on my monster cod fillet had stayed admirably crisp, the fish within firm and flaky.

Homemade tartare sauce - rich mayo studded with poky capers and gherkins - was spot on and the crushed garden peas, Sarsons and Heinz were all present and correct. The only grumble came with the chips. These are more rustling fries than familiar fat battens of potato that usually accompany this British staple, and are something of a bone of contention amongst the more old school villagers. True, they might not be traditional, but are still mighty good. To top things off we also won the quiz with our superior knowledge of the length of the M1 in the tie break (193.5 miles if you were interested)

The following night we made it back down the pub proper for dinner. Starting with, amongst others, my Mum's dish of choice when she dines here, the Portland crab on toast. It's hard to tire of spanking fresh Dorset seafood, mixed with a a lick of mayo and lemon and served on crisp toast made from their house baked bread - but at ten quid you might expect it to be pretty good.

I was nearly swayed by the pigeon salad with bacon and croutons but in the end the simplicity (and because it sounded so lovely) of the chalk stream trout sashimi won out. It was without superlative; fatty, sweet slices of beautifully fresh fish, with none of the dank muddy flavour that sometimes blights these river dwellers, and served Japanese style with soy and an eye watering blob of wasabi; a cracking plate to start.

Mains were equally noteworthy. A brace of pan fried baby dover sole with hollandaise sauce, purple sprouting broccoli, spring greens and cute as a button (and not much bigger) Jersey Royals was simple seasonal cooking at its very finest. Last time I ate here a single (larger) fish cost a pony (in the Cockney vernacular, not a relic of livestock trading), but this came in at an entirely reasonable (if hardly cheap) 17 pounds.

 

My Mum's majestic looking pie with a proper suet crust pastry also deserves a mention. There is something wonderfully old fashioned about a suet crust, and this example was properly crisp on top and nicely soggy beneath, filled with simply braised local lamb and served with a pile of buttery mash and greens.

My pud was a white chocolate terrine (they also do a great dark chocolate one, served with a Seville coffee) with early English strawberries and cream. This had an admirably light texture while still being creamy and rich but, with the ripple of jammy berry compote swirled through, a touch too sweet for me.

Better were a plate of their signature beignets. On the left are apple-stuffed balls of freshly fried dough, served with a salted caramel sauced (and a spiced cider shot), that I enjoyed last time we ate here. On the right is the Ewing's lemon curd doughuts served with a sharp lemon posset. These were peerless as ever

The King John isn't a bargain (although my Mum reports a recent £20 prix fixe at lunchtime) but it does have a (very) local and seasonal menu of well cooked food. For those not wanting to eat the beer is well kept  - often featuring Sixpenny brews from a couple of miles up the road, alongside Ringwood and Badger - there's log fires in the winter, a leg of ham carved to order on the bar and plenty of corduroy, gun dogs and gin. Perfect for a proper weekend in the sticks.