The Man Who Ate Everything - Jeffrey Steingarten [217]
A fruit pie does not need to overflow to signal that it is done. Both cornstarch and flour are fully cooked at about 190° F., way below the boiling point. Keeping them above that temperature for, say, 20 minutes, can destroy their thickening power. Baking the pie at too low a temperature encourages overflow before the crust is done. But just a little boil-over gives the pie a nice, homey look.
18. Let the pie cool in its pie plate on a rack for at least 2 hours. If you allow the pie to cool all the way down to room temperature, reheat it slightly at 325° F. for 15 to 20 minutes. Do not refrigerate or cover hermetically. The next day, leftover pie can be reheated successfully at 375° F. for 20 to 25 minutes and allowed to cool for 5 minutes. But twice reheated, the crust may become greasy.
19. Serve with good vanilla ice cream.
20. When your pie has been nearly consumed, go back to step 1 and start again.
Four Fruit Fillings
Apple pie is perfect for fall, after the harvest, when the fruit is at its peak. In later months, taste the apples carefully before putting them into a pie to make sure they are still crisp and full of flavor. At the height of summer you will bake sumptuous fruit pies packed with wild blueberries, peaches, or fresh sour cherries, all picked at their finest hour.
Apple Pie Filling
What I like least about the average apple pie is cinnamon. This filling contains no cinnamon. The only flavorings here are vanilla and lemon juice. The only taste should be pure apple. You can also substitute some well-packed brown sugar for the white sugar to accentuate the slightly caramelized taste of baked apples, which is accentuated by vanilla.
Old recipes from England and America use cloves, mace, nutmeg, orange-flower water, rose water, lemon zest, or brown sugar, but only sometimes cinnamon. The French rarely pair cinnamon with apples. Later American recipes always include cinnamon, as though its rough, gritty, overwhelming flavor were inseparable from the flavor of apples. Try making a mock apple pie (an odd idea from early-nineteenth-century America), using the recipe on the back of a Ritz cracker box, as I did (see this page); instead of apples, you fill a pie crust with smashed Ritz crackers soaked in sugar syrup, lemon juice, and lots of cinnamon. I tested one on my wife and three friends, and nobody guessed that there were no apples in the pie! Promiscuous use of cinnamon has made us forget the true taste of apples. Now you will remember.
3½ pounds (7 or 8) baking apples (use Gravensteins early in the season when they are less sugary, or Pippins, or Granny Smiths)
1 lemon, cut in half
1¼ cups white granulated sugar (adjusted for extra-tart or extra-sweet apples)
3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon (scant) pure vanilla extract
¼ teaspoon salt (pie experts, especially from the South, insist that a little salt helps bring out the essential flavor of the fruit; I agree)
1. Before making the piecrust, peel and core the apples, and put them in a large bowl of cold water mixed with the juice of one of the lemon halves.
2. Make the piecrust dough through step 10, this page. Refrigerate the circles of dough.
3. Immediately remove the apples from their lemon water and dry them. Cut each one into quarters, and then cut each quarter both lengthwise and crosswise into four chunks (yielding 8 to 9 cups), or sixteen chunks for