Around Thanksgiving we visited wonderful friends who are also amazing cooks. After fantastic wood-fire cooked home-made pizza for dinner we had leftover Thanksgiving pies for dessert. One was pumpkin and the other was persimmon.*
I did not even know persimmon pie existed. (On a side note I am forever indebted to Jess for showing me amazing things to do with persimmons, last year she made a salad with persimmon & fresh mint, I never would have thought of the combo and it was amazing.)
I was once again inspired, and sent home with a grocery bag of persimmons. I spent a long time searching the internet for a good persimmon pie recipe, but couldn't find anything that looked right; I wanted my pie to have the same almost exotic/unexpected quality as hers (she used an olive oil crust which just added,) but was too embarrassed to call and ask for the recipe (plus I think she cooks a bit like me, more from imagination than recipe.)
I ended up completely winging it- with delicious results!
First off, I suck at pie crust. I made it by hand for this pie, but I always end up squishing pieces together in the pie pan after ripping the thing into eight pieces trying to transfer it after rolling.
Pie Crust (from the recipe on my pastry board)
- 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
- 3/4 cup shortening (I used 2/4 cup unsalted butter and 1/4 cup crisco)
- 1/3 a cup cold milk (or water)
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 2 tsp sugar (could have used a tad more)
- this makes two 9-inch pie crusts, which I'm not going into due to my own ineptitude. Please use your own favorite recipe of get some pre-made frozen ones (I was just too much of a cheapskate to pay what they wanted for the good ones)
Pie Filling (two parts)
- 4 persimmons (all persimmons used are fuyu)
- 1 tsp sugar
- peel and chop persimmons
- in heavy sauce pan cook persimmons with sugar until they begin to break down
- use immersion blender or potato masher or fork to puree persimmons
- move puree to large mixing bowl
- 5 persimmons
- juice of one small tangerine or other citrus
- 1 tsp ground ginger
- 1/4 tsp fresh ground nutmeg (or to taste)
- peel and quarter persimmons, thinly slice quarters and stir in puree
- squeeze tangerine juice into pie filling and stir well
- add ground ginger and nutmeg to filling and mix
- taste and add more spices as you see fit, or any other spices you'd like, or more sugar if you have a sweet tooth
- line 9-inch pie tin with first crust and blind-bake it
- set oven to 350 degrees
- pour pie-filling into crust
- cut second crust into 1/2 inch strips and weave into a lattice over the pie top (or totally cheat like me and just start in one corner of the pie alternating horizontal & vertical strips 'til it looks like a lattice)
- brush top of pie with melted butter or egg-wash and sprinkle with sugar (I didn't do this, but will next time)
- bake pie in a 350 degree oven for 1 hour and let cool before serving
This pie is excellent with whipped cream &/or vanilla ice cream, probably a nice glass of spiked eggnog too; enjoy!
*After typing it this many times the word "persimmon" starts to look very bizarre
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