shiokadelicious!

Pie Therapy

A couple of weeks ago, I tried out my very first Nigella savory recipe – from HTBADG (that’s “How To Be A Domestic Goddess”, in case you are wondering ). Buoyed by the resounding success of my Nutella birthday cake, I wanted to try her savory pie recipes to see if they were as easily successful as her sweet creations.

I chose the Supper Onion Pie. It seemed like the perfect choice for that day. I had just come home from a meeting where a deal I had been working very hard on for six months suffered a (temporary, as it turned out a few days later) setback. And it just felt rather appropriate to spend some time chopping onions. Lots and lots of onions. All 750g of onions, in fact! There was something quite therapeutic about chopping onions. One thing for sure: by the time I had prepped all the onions, I was feeling a lot better!

Okay, so the pie is called a Supper Pie, but I made it for a late lunch. No matter. It is only semantics after all. I think any time of the day is perfect for a slice of comforting, homey pie.

I was attracted to the pie for several reasons. I love caramelized onions, especially caramelized red onions; they are meltingly tender and soft, with a gorgeous caramel-y sweetness. And this pie came with copious amounts of the stuff. Plus, the recipe used a simple-sounding scone dough for the crust. I also liked the idea of the pie being made in the fashion of an upside-down cake; the cooked-down onions on the bottom of the pan, with the uncooked crust on top, so that it got nicely golden in the oven.

I pretty much made the recipe as it was in the book. No, I lie. Would I make a recipe without tinkering with it? C’mon. Seriously. Okay, so I did do a little bit of adjustment… but only a teeny weeny bit. And only to the onions. Instead of thyme – of which I had none on hand, be it fresh or dried – I used fresh chopped coriander (which I happen to absolutely adore). I also had no strong Cheddar or any other strong cheese in the fridge (this was hardly a pre-planned baking session after all). So, I settled for regular Cheddar. And oh, I also could not resist deglazing the pan with a little bit of wine, which the recipe did not call for.

The scone dough, however, was made exactly as the recipe requested. (I do obey instructions at least some of the time. )

And the pie came out looking gorgeous.

The crust was nicely golden, and covered with a luscious, thick cushiony layer of beautifully aromatic onions.

The onions tasted very good – but that’s because I like onions a lot. This was definitely not a pie for the onion non-lover that was for sure. It was more of a simple, two-note kind of a pie – with just onions and crust being the dominant players in terms of flavors and textures; there was little else for contrast.

I was somewhat disappointed with the texture of the crust. I’m not sure what I was expecting exactly, but the idea of a “scone dough” conjured up images of a slightly dense, yet still very tender crumb. This pastry was not only rather dense, but a little chewy and almost “dough-y” in bite. I really couldn’t say I had much enthusiasm for the crust at all. And I’m just wondering (as I know there are a lot of bakers amongst you who bake faithfully from Nigella’s recipes), has anyone made this pie before? Did you get the same result for the crust? Or did yours come out completely differently? I would love to find out. And maybe to try the crust again.

On balance, the pie was pretty good; but somehow not quite worth the effort. Sure, it was probably easier to put together than a regular pie that had a dough which needed to rest and then be rolled out. Yet, this was hardly a quick thing to serve up. From start to finish, it took almost 1½ hours (½ hour prepping, ½ hour cooking the onions, ½ hour baking) before this baby was on the table. I could have made fried rice or a simple pasta dish; grilled salmon over noodles or even a couple of stir-fried dishes served with rice in that amount of time or less. Please don’t get me wrong; this was by no means a “bad” recipe. I guess, for me personally, the results just weren’t exciting enough to warrant spending that amount of time in the kitchen.

Having said all that, I would still love to find a Nigella savory baking recipe to try out and fall in love with. So, I would welcome some recommendations; if you have had any wondrous experiences with any of her recipes, please, please let me know.

Copyright © 2004 Renee Kho. All Rights Reserved.
Please contact me for permission to copy, publish, distribute or display any of the images or text contained in this article.

Going Potty Over Pot-Pie

On Tuesday, I decided I wanted to try my hand at making a vegetable pot-pie. Now, I’ve never, in all my life, made a pot pie before. On top of that, I’ve never made a savory pie before. Hard to believe, I know, but it is true. Okay, so what could be so difficult about a pot pie right? It’s just a pie baked in a deep casserole dish, with only a top crust, and no dough base. Plus, I’ve made dessert pies before, so the basics are pretty much the same for a savory pie. Should be simple enough. But of course, Renee has to go make life even more interesting (difficult??) for herself… she decided that she was going to try to make a savory pot pie with a biscuit crust. How’s that for jumping in at the deep end?!

I am referring to the American biscuit, not the English… i.e. those scone-like baked items that are sometimes called “Southern Biscuits”. I have never made biscuits before. Not even sure if I have ever eaten one (at least an authentic one). Which means I don’t even know what a biscuit should really be like. And here I was contemplating using that as a crust for my pie!

I have been very tempted to try baking biscuits ever since I read Deb’s post on her attempt at making them. Hers had looked absolutely delectable. Plus, the other day, whilst waiting for someone and flipping through a stray magazine, I had chanced upon a recipe for a pot pie with a biscuit crust, and it looked wonderful. So that did it… I would combine two things that I wanted to make into one. I thought I was being so clever… haha… little did I know of the adventure (or more precisely, misadventure) that awaited me…

The vegetable filling was fine. It turned out really well in fact, with the family giving it the two thumbs up.

I just took whatever vegetables I could find in the fridge and which would give a nice balance of colors, and diced them into equal sized cubes for ease of cooking. I ended up using 1 large onion, ½ large red bell pepper, 1½ yellow-fleshed potatoes (I decided against using Russets, as I wanted something firmer fleshed and not fluffy), 1½ carrots, small flower of broccoli, 1 stalk celery and a medium bunch of cilantro / coriander (interchangeable with parsley).

I sauteed 2 cloves of minced garlic with the diced onions in hot oil until slightly softened, before adding the potatoes, carrots and broccoli. When they were just about to start becoming tender, I added around 2 cups of chicken stock (I wasn’t trying to make the dish vegetarian, so I didn’t bother with vegetable stock), and the seasonings.

Right up to the last moment I was vacillating between making the pie filling Asian or Western. I just couldn’t make my mind up. Finally, when the moment arrived for the seasonings to be added, I opted for Asian. I mixed together Chinese rice wine, hoisin sauce, sesame oil, light soy sauce, sugar and ground black pepper, before adding it to the vegetables. I can’t for the world of me remember the quantities I used of each seasoning. I was just tasting and adjusting as I added. So, these are very approximate, recalled from memory (which is far from reliable!). I think it was around 3 tablespoons of wine, 4 heaped teaspoons of hoisin sauce, ½ tablespoon sesame oil, maybe about 6 (?) teaspoons light soy sauce, 1 teaspoon sugar and a very, very generous shake of ground black pepper.

The vegetables were left to simmer for maybe 5 minutes or so. The bell pepper and the celery were then added, and allowed to continue simmering for only another 2-3 minutes, as I wanted all the vegetables under-cooked so that they could finish cooking in the oven.

After bringing the vegetable mixture to a rolling boil, I added around ½ cup of water dissolved with 2 tablespoons of flour, to thicken the filling. As soon as the vegetables came to a rolling boil again, I removed the heat, and stirred in the cilantro. Placed everything into an 8” casserole dish and put it aside. The filling was done.

Now, for the exciting part… the crust... I had dug out a very old recipe for sweet potato biscuits that I had copied from somewhere yonks ago, but never tried. It looked really simple… I combined together 1½ cups flour, 1 tablespoon baking powder and ½ teaspoon salt. Next, I rubbed in 3 tablespoons of softened butter to form coarse crumbs. So far so good.

Separately, I combined ¾ cup cooked and mashed sweet potato with ¾ cup 1% milk, and gently whisked till smooth. This was added to the flour/butter crumbs mixture. Then, the nightmare began…

The instructions had said to mix the milk mixture with flour/butter mixture to form a soft ball of dough. Ha! What I got was this mushy thing that looked nothing like dough. It was sticky, wet and messy. There was no way I could roll this out. Perhaps the sweet potato had been cooked too long and was too soft. Perhaps I failed to take into account the humidity and moisture in the environment (it had been hot and humid in the early part of the day, then it had rained throughout the afternoon), which probably affected the amount of flour that was necessary. And also most definitely, I had no idea what kind of texture I was really supposed to be looking for in a biscuit dough. But I had to save it somehow… otherwise there would be nothing to eat for dinner!

So I added a bit more flour and tried to get it to resemble something that looked remotely like soft dough. I got there in the end… but it had very obviously been worked too much, and I already knew it wasn’t going to rise. But I was at least hoping it wouldn’t be so hard as to be inedible. Perhaps, just perhaps, fingers crossed, it might hopefully come out something close to a normal pie crust??

Popped the pie into a 425F / 220C oven for their 20 minute bake time and hoped for the best.

Well, the dough rose… ever so slightly. It wasn’t totally flat (thank goodness!). But it was definitely not what I would call a biscuit crust. Still, it tasted good with the pie filling, or so the family said. But family is always supportive, kind and diplomatic! To be honest, I was expecting a lot worse. I had visions of everyone having instant cup noodles for dinner! The filling was yummy, the crust wasn’t too bad – just a little under-salted. And I liked the color of the crust – the orange tinge from the orange fleshed sweet potatoes was just what I had wanted. I chose not to use the yellow fleshed variety of sweet potatoes as I had wanted to see what interesting color the crust would turn out like.

So note to self… lessons I should take away from this whole escapade:

• NEVER try out a new dish for a main meal like dinner, when a failure would mean many hungry stomachs!
• DON’T try to cook more than one new dish at a time, even if it is two new dishes combined into one.

Other notes:
• Add a little more cilantro the next time. I just love how it lifted the flavors of the filling, and the way the flavors melded after being baked for 20 minutes.
• Probably add a little more flour to thicken the filling – 3 tablespoons instead of 2. The family would have preferred the filling more “thickened”.
• Salt the dough more.

Okay, I’m on a mission… I will make nice, risen, flakey, scrumptious biscuits… one day…

Copyright © 2003 Renee Kho. All rights reserved.
Please contact me for permission to copy, distribute or display any of the images and text contained in this article.