The Man Who Ate Everything - Jeffrey Steingarten [215]
You are done when the particles of flour-coated fat range in size from coarse meal to grains of rice to peas to small olives. It is important that the fat particles range widely in size. A little flour may remain uncoated.
6. Add ½ cup of the cold water, sprinkling it evenly over the surface of the mixture. Immediately stir the water into the flour with a fork, held vertically, starting at the sides of the bowl, then stirring in smaller and smaller circles toward the center, making sure that the points of the fork sweep the bottom of the bowl. Your motions should be light. After a few stirs, all the flour should be moistened and the dough gathered into small clumps. If there are too many loose, dry crumbs, add a tablespoon or two of cold water and stir again. Do not overmix. The more thoroughly you have rubbed the shortening into the flour and the more shortening you use, the less water you will need. It is unlikely that you will use the entire ¾ cup.
7. Gather all the dough by pressing it together firmly against one side of the bowl. Break off about half, shape it into a ball with your cool fingertips, not your sweaty palms, and flatten it on the counter into a disk about an inch high. Repeat with the other half of the dough.
8. Grease a 9-inch glass (or dark metal) pie plate with the tablespoon of additional shortening.
9. You may immediately roll out both crusts, or wrap each disk in plastic and refrigerate for 15 to 30 minutes—if this is more convenient or if the kitchen is very warm or if you have used lard and butter as your shortening. If you do refrigerate the dough, it will then require 5 to 10 minutes at room temperature before it becomes malleable; it should not break at the edges when you roll it out.
To roll: On a well-floured surface with a heavy, well-floured rolling pin, roll the larger of the two disks into a rough 13-inch circle, ⅛ inch thick or slightly more. Use a light touch with the rolling pin, placing it on the dough between the center and the near edge and rolling away from you to the far edge, being careful to lift the rolling pin before you flatten the far edge. Roll toward you in the same manner. Turn the dough an eighth or a quarter of the way around, and roll again. You should not compress it downward but stretch it outward. If the dough sticks to the work surface (the first signs are that it fails to stretch freely away from you as you roll it or does not easily pry off when you turn it), run a thin metal spatula under it and flour the surface again. This dough should be easy to work with and require only ten to twelve strokes of the rolling pin. The first few dozen times, your circle of dough may take the shape of an amoeba; just make sure that when you are finished the smallest diameter is 13 inches so that it will fit the pie plate without major patching.
10. Brush any excess flour from the circle of dough (flour can toughen the surface of the crust), fold the circle gently into quarters, and lift it onto the greased pie plate, placing the point of the dough at the center. Unfold the dough into a circle again. Fit it into the pie plate by gently lifting the edges of the dough all around and nudging it (without stretching it) to line the bottom and sides of the plate. Trim the edges all around with a large pair of scissors so that the dough comes just beyond the edge of the rim. If you do not have enough dough in some spots, patch with scraps from other areas, first moistening