I’ve spoken many times about my obsession with food from the Southern United States. From a purely surface view, the lyrical names always draw me in and upon closer inspection, the list of ingredients could have you either running away scared at the amount of butter and sugar or running towards it in a slightly perverse way. Of course I’m the latter.
It was cold and rainy weather but then out came a rainbow
Originally a recipe from the Pennsylvania Dutch and Amish, the Shoo-fly Pie (named because of the flies that it tends to attract that need to be “shooed” away) is a molasses pie with a delicious crumble topping. I confess that I do have an ulterior motive. It’s getting cold here in Sydney – seemingly suddenly so – and last night when I woke up at 4am I looked at the ceiling to where we have the weather projected from our weather station clock and saw that the dreaded numbers flip from 11.0 degrees to 10.9. Abominable really. And may I add we are supposed to still in Autumn?
If you make your own crust, it is a bit of a production and for this recipe I’ve just specified that you buy a pre-made crust so that the pie is incredibly easy to do). I tried to do something fancy with the crust, for no reason but to be decorative but it turned it from a very easy pie into a huge production. Nevertheless once cooked, I stuck my fork into the pie to see what it was like. The grainy sand part on top is a delicious, buttery crumble topping, but the molasses layer underneath is thick and rich and smokey. My husband gulped it down, loving the sweetness. I liked the first few bites but found myself worrying about my blood sugar levels half way through. And we know that’s no way to truly embrace Southern Cuisine.
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May 20th, 2009
by Not Quite Nigella
There’s something I know for certain: it’s pie season. The cooler temperature and shorter days signal to me, the need for comfort food and even thought the temperature itself hasn’t dipped that much, it’s low enough for me to yearn for the heat of the oven. I’m a different creature in Winter. During Summer it’s all about salads and water but in Winter, it’s a pastry and soup fest. And this comparatively cool Sydney evening made me hanker for some pies.
We try and eat vegetarian a few nights a week for health reasons and to reduce our reliance on meat. That’s not a sign that I am about to go full time vegetarian – I tried that once and it wasn’t for me but it feels healthier and better for the environment to do so three to four nights a week. It also lightens our grocery bill which is a nice bonus for my husband who tears his hair out at the things I like to put in my trolley.
If you’re a hardened carnivore, you could certainly add some chicken to these but I do think that they are perfect as is although by all means substitute it with whatever vegetables you have to hand – 3.5 cups will do. One thing that I never really saw any point to was making your own pastry. That is, until I found an amazing Pâte Brisée shortcrust pastry recipe. I will say that if you are not so inclined to make your own, you can use store bought but this Pâte Brisée pastry is to die for. But don’t worry I haven’t lost the entire plot, I still bought the puff pastry. That would probably signal a descent into utter madness if I were to make my own puff pastry. Feel free to call the authorities to pick me up should that ever happen.
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May 5th, 2009
by Not Quite Nigella
I’ve often thought to start a new series of recipes. They’d be called the “Ugly but Delicious” range. Whilst they may not elicit the same gasps of delight or frisson of electricity amongst the crowd as a delicate French Macaron, after an initial “Huh?” the eater would be reduced to making moaning, guttural noises of unchecked pleasure. This dish is one of them. A cobbler is like an upside down pie, or at least that was the way described to me when I first had one at South restaurant in Neutral Bay.
The cobbler topping recipe is adapted from Epicurious, after all it is an American dessert so I figured they would have a great recipe for it. As for the rest, banana is not really that frequently used as a cobbler filling as say peach, apple or cherry, but pay no mind to the historical inaccuracy. It tastes phenomenal and I think that’s all that should matter. I also used some caramel filling I made a while back and stashed in the freezer. Bananas and caramel are two perfect bed partners. And after serving this to someone, they’ll be dying to take you to bed too*.
*I give no actual promises of rumpy pumpy
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April 11th, 2009
by Not Quite Nigella
Readers of NQN are fabulous people as they suggest things that they think I’d like to make. One of these readers is Sydneygal who sent me this article from the NY Times about the resurgence of the Whoopie Pie. Said to be the next big thing after cupcakes, they’re a more homely, less fancy version of a cupcake. I knew I had to make it, more out of curiosity as I only had a fleeting familiarity with just the concept having never eaten one before. Said to be named so as they were originally made by Amish housewives to be given to farmer husbands, they were said to exclaim “Whoopie!” upon discovering the treat in their lunchboxes.
I was watching The View…yes there I’ve said it. I watch The View. I never used to understand why people would want to watch a bunch of ladies bickering and yelling over each other simultaneously on screen and I certainly never watched the Australian version called The Catch up (the name was enough to dissuade me from watching) but slowly I became accustomed to watching The View and now watch it every day. My need to reach into the screen to throttle Elisabeth has even lessened although this is probably due to the US election being over.
But I digress, they were also talking about the Whoopie Pie story. Suddenly the Whoopie Pie jumped to the top of the list and I found myself looking up the recipe to see whether I could do it. Having just made a cake, I was dangerously low on sugar in my pantry. And despite many suggestions from tweeps to knock on my neighbour’s doors I schlepped it down to the shops to get my precious sugar. Which as it turns out, I didn’t end up using due to the late hour.
I used Zingerman Bakehouse’s recipe for the cake itself and decided to use the filling in the Taste.com.au recipe as it was easier than doing a Swiss Buttercream which I can’t do as I don’t have a handheld electric mixer-that broke and was replaced by the Kitchenaid. The filling is easy, just melt some marshmallows with a little water and sandwich together.
The cookies or cake or whatever you’d like to call them are soft but taste a bit like a supermarket chocolate cake-whilst looking like a cookie and while they are cooling they are delicate. By themselves, they aren’t too bad although they do need a cream to wodge them together and give them some added oomph. I do think that a buttercream might be a better match for a filling than the marshmallows which while easy, end up being a bit bland. I added some tiny chocolate flakes to upp the chocolate count although the original recipe didn’t specify these. In my humble opinion, I think they taste all the better for it.
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March 24th, 2009
by Not Quite Nigella
One of the best things about food blogging is meeting fellow bloggers. Case in point is Christie from Fig & Cherry who has proved to be a great blogging friend and a lot of fun to hang out with. We have a lot in common, from obviously loving food, Dexter, pillow menus, hotels to being bossy chatterboxes. So when she read about our visit to Dunes, we got to talking and she mentioned that she hadn’t been to Palm Beach before. It seemed a tragedy for a Sydney-Sider so we sought to rectify this as soon as possible. However the weather gods decided to not let us have our picnic in the end. Such is the crazy weather that we’ve been having lately.
I was watching Food Safari’s episode on England and was fascinated by the way they made Pork Pies. I had one whilst in London and it was delicious, particularly the pastry (just don’t look at the nutritional information, you’ll think it’s a misprint but I’m afraid not!). I had heard that the traditional way to make English pastry for things such as Steak and Kidney pie is through using Suet ( the hard fat around the kidneys and loins in beef and sheep) but I had yet to cook with it. Sure it wasn’t in anyway healthy but I figure a few times eating it in your lifetime can’t hurt. But I dipped a trepidatious toe in the Suet pool by buying a Suet mix where I simply added flour, cold water and salt to create the pastry. If it worked, I’d look at ordering some from the butcher’s. Because I was pressed for time as I was making this on a Friday I took some shortcuts with the pastry and frozen spinach.
We woke on the Saturday morning to a light howling of wind and an overcast day. It seemed that today was not going to be the day to go to Palm Beach so we made alternate plans. As for the fate of this pie? It was my husband’s lunch, well received, and eaten picnic style with his hands. Just in front of a computer.
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February 6th, 2009
by Not Quite Nigella
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