Doris and Jilly Cook » baking

Strawberry Rhubarb Pie

dorisandjilly — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 12:00:28 +0000

I have no idea why, but I’ve been on a total pie kick this summer. This is the second strawberry rhubarb pie I’ve made, plus a cherry pie for a picnic. Perhaps I’ll look back fondly on the summer of 2010 as the summer of pie?

I usually use Joy of Cooking as a reference for both flaky pie crust and sugar/filling ratios. I generally cut back a bit on the fat. If I know I’m cooking for omnivores, I’ll throw in maybe a tablespoon or so of rendered bacon fat…but I wouldn’t suggest that for potlucks and picnics, where vegetarian friends might get tricked into eating pork pie. You’ll notice that I have a bit of trouble maintaining the integrity of a pie crust, but my feeling is that one eats a piece of pie for its taste, not its looks. And finally, rest assured that you can make this from fresh or frozen fruit.

I’m curious: how do you store your pies? My family always left theirs out on the table until someone ate it. Usually this would take a couple of days. Presumably one should refrigerate it if you’re planning on having it hang around, but what’s the turning point?

Strawberry Rhubarb Pie

For the crust:

2 1/2 c. all-purpose flour
1 T sugar
1/3 c. unsalted butter
1/3 c. vegetable shortening OR 1/4 c. vegetable shortening + 1 1/2 T bacon fat
Pinch of salt (omit if using bacon fat)
About 1/3 c. ice-cold water

For the filling:

3 c. fresh strawberries, hulled and halved (see below for frozen)
2 to 3 c. rhubarb, cleaned and cut into 1″ pieces
1/2 to 1 c sugar, depending on your tartness preference
3 T cornstarch

1) Make the dough. Combine the flour, sugar, and salt. Cut in the fat, either using a pastry cutter, two knives, or a food processor. Add in just enough water to make the whole thing stick together. Squeeze it together, wrap it all up in plastic wrap, and refrigerator for at least half an hour. It needs to be good and cold to keep it from melting when you roll out the dough.

2) Preheat the oven to 425°F.

3) Divide the dough into two slightly uneven halves. Roll out the larger half into a circle slightly larger than a 10″ pie plan. Transfer the dough to the pan. Tip: Fold it in half, fold again, to make a little quarter. Put the point in the center of the pie pan and unfold.

4) Combine the filling ingredients and let sit no more than 10 minutes while you make the top crust.

5) Roll out the smaller portion of the dough into a circle large enough to top your pie.

6) Transfer your filling to the pie pan. Carefully cover with the dough for the top crust. If you have miraculously done this without ripping it, you’ll need to add some decorative vents. If you, like me, have created several little rips, use them creatively to begin a vent design. Trim the edges a hair beyond the end of the pan, and so that the bottom layer is slightly outside of the top. Fold over the bottom crust overhang over the top, then seal using your preferred method: crimping with a fork, your fingers, etc. Brush the crust with a little bit of milk and dust with sugar. Transfer the pie pan to a baking sheet (to catch drips) and put on a rack in the bottom third of the oven.

7) Bake for 30 minutes, then turn the heat down to 350°F and bake another 30 minutes. The crust should be golden brown, and delicious strawberry rhubarb goo should be spilling out of the pie.

To make with frozen berries: If using whole, individually quick frozen berries, just substitute them as if they were fresh. If using berries frozen in sugar, you’ll need an entire quart, and you’ll need to drain all but 1/4 c. of the liquid (Keep it! Strawberry syrup!). Add just a bit of sugar—say, 1/4 c.—and be sure to include the cornstarch.

Pita Pita Pita

dorisandjilly — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 13:05:48 +0000

I used to bake a lot of bread back when I was in grad school, but then I stopped. Lately I’ve been trying to get back into the swing of it—not enough to join one of the ever-popular challenges, but enough to have it around. Homemade pita has to be one of my all-time favorites.

This particular batch is from the somewhat fussy directions in Rose Beranbaum’s The Bread Bible, but since her commentary suggests that any pizza dough will do, I’ll spare you the ingredients. The key in pita dough is in the kneading, the shaping, and the heating of the oven. So, more or less, here’s what you do.

1) The dough is fairly wet, so use a stand mixer if you have one. Just toss everything in the bowl and mix on medium low with a dough hook for a good 10 minutes. The dough should be fairly smooth.

2) Let it rise slowly to develop flavor. I stuck mine in the fridge and shaped it the next day.

3) When you’re ready to start shaping, split the dough into ping pong ball size pieces. Don’t roll them, though—you want to shape them by pulling and stretching without breaking the gluten. Set them on a flour-dusted surface, squish slightly, cover with a towel, and let rest 20 minutes.

4) Roll each ball into a disc about 1/4 to 1/3 inch thick (about 4 inches). Let them rest another 10 minutes, this time without a towel.

5) Meanwhile, get your oven nice and hot, preferably 500°F. If you have a baking stone, great; if not, just invert a roasting pan. The point is that you need a hot, smooth surface that you can put the pita on. Toss as many as will fit in the oven and bake three minutes. Give the oven a 5-minute break between each batch to let it warm back up.

And look at them! So puffy, with the cute little pocket inside! Tasty, too. Word on the street is that you can also cook them on a griddle or hot skillet, but I haven’t tried it. If you have, and it works, please tell us in the comments!

Strata with Sausage and Broccoli

dorisandjilly — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 14:55:06 +0000

Perhaps it has not escaped your notice that I seem to have a lot of eggs and cheese. It’s inevitable. I’m often on the road this time of year, but the CSA, with its dozen eggs, half pound of cheese, and two pounds of meat, arrives every week. My husband and I therefore eat a lot of yellow dinners. This is an attempt to get some color back into our diets.

I discovered the joys of strata through Deborah Madison’s Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone. They are a wonder of the kitchen: utterly flexible, and fairly forgiving. Better yet, a good strata uses stale bread! So long as you’re using some combination of eggs, milk, bread, and vegetables that go together, you’ll end up with something nice. Do tell us what you come up with, yes?

Strata with Sausage and Broccoli

half a loaf of stale bread (good bread makes a better strata)
4 eggs
2 c. milk (2% is fine; richer milk makes a richer strata)
1 lb. loose breakfast sausage
1 head broccoli, cut into large pieces
About 1/4 lb. cheddar, Swiss, or other mild cheese, shredded
Salt and pepper, to taste

1) Brown the sausage.

2) Blanche the broccoil (cook in boiling water only until it changes colors).

3) Cut the bread into enough thin slices to make three layers in a deep baking vessel (I use a 9x9x3 pan). Put the first layer on the bottom. Cover with 1/2 of the sausage, 1/2 of the broccoli, and 1/3 of the cheese. Add another layer of bread, then the other half of the sausage and broccoli and another third of the cheese. Add the third layer of bread, and top with the remaining cheese.

4) Beat the eggs, milk, salt, and pepper. Pour the mixture over the bread. Use a potato masher to push the bread beneath the level of the custard. Cover and refrigerate for at least an hour, then bake at 350ºF for about an hour, or until it’s golden and puffy.

Hobo Bread: Theme and Variation

dorisgoat — Tue, 19 May 2009 19:54:45 +0000

Some of you may recall Jilly’s gorgeous—and somewhat curious—hobo bread. In Jilly’s low-impact approach to daily baking, not only do you not knead the dough, you don’t wash the bowl. I’d been meaning to try it for quite some time, but I must admit that I was a little bit intimidated by the process…all those weights and measures and stuff. Last week I finally dived in. Since I didn’t have a starter, I used about 1 teaspoon of yeast to get things started, mixed it with 3 cups of flour and 1/2 cups water, a handfull of oatmeal and flax seeds, and let it sit all night. The next morning I stirred it down, tossed it around a couple of times on a flour-covered surface, put it in a colander lined with a muslin bag, let it rise, and baked it in a preheated dutch oven. (And very important: I saved a blob for the next time and stuck it in the unwashed bowl.) It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t spectacular.

Day 2: No added yeast: This time, I used the previous day’s blob as my starter. And lo! Beautiful bread:

And then, the next day, I took the starter and made tasty little sourdough hamburger buns:

The moral of the story is that you, too, can have amazing, pseudo-sourdough breads with very little effort, so long as you can stand the sight of an unwashed bowl and dough blob in your kitchen. By request, I’ve provided simplified instructions.

Jilly’s Hobo Bread, Simplified

1) When you make a batch of bread, pull off about 1/4 c of dough and throw it in your bowl. Add about 1/2 c of water and whatever flour is left on your counter to the bowl. Cover and let it sit overnight, or a day or two.

The night before or morning that you want bread:
2) Add about 2 1/2 c flour and 1 c of water to the bowl. Stir everything together and cover. Let it sit overnight or at least five hours. It should be quite large and bubbly.

3) Prepare a surface to work on by coating it with flour. Pour your dough onto the surface. If you’re planning on adding goodies, like herbs or nuts or seeds or cheese into the dough, remember to pull off the hunk of spare dough first. Work enough flour into it that you can handle the dough, then let it rest for about 15 minutes.

4) Shape the dough however you want. It’s not a terribly sturdy dough, so it will do better if it has support, like some sort of bowl or pan lined with a flour-lined shirt. It does have some spring, though, so you can definitely make rolls if you want. Let it rise about 2 hours.

5) A half hour before you’re ready to bake, preheat the oven to 475°, preferably with a cooking vessel, like a dutch oven or clay pot, inside. Then gently transfer the dough to the vessel and bake it until it’s done: generally about half an hour. Note that I baked the rolls dirctly on a cooking sheet, and they turned out just fine.