Pieathalon 9: Veal, Ham and Tongue Pie

That's right, it's pie time again!  After Yinzerella sent out the announcement, I perused my cookbooks and chose chocolate angel pie as my contribution, which sounded really nice to me. I sent it in and eagerly awaited my assignment.  What delectable confection was I going to be asked to re-create in my kitchen?  Oh, what could it be?

• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Thomas Nelson & Sons Ltd (January 1, 1968)
  Copyright Robert Carrier 1968

Oooh, it's something British!  They have all sorts of great desserts.  What will I get to make?

What the...???

Tongue Pie - the pie that tastes you back!

Hmmm.  Not exactly what I was expecting, but I'm not scared of a little tongue!  

I was able to find a tongue easily, but I did have a problem finding gammon and veal.  Those do not exist in this part of Texas, as far as I can tell.  A little internet searching told me that I could substitute chicken for the veal and regular ham for the gammon, so we were off!

Yep, that's a tongue

Day 1

The first step in creating this pie involved cooking the tongue.  I put it in the pressure cooker for 50 minutes with water, salt, pepper, onion powder and a bay leaf.  It smelled amazing, but it came out looking like this...

The visual appeal is not improved with cooking!

Farm Boy kindly offered to remove the skin from the tongue for me while I was out.  I immediately accepted that offer because "skinning a tongue" just isn't very high on my bucket list.

Day 2

The following day, I boiled some eggs, chopped up the now skinless tongue and mixed it with the other ingredients. I did all this first so I could deal with my first attempt at a hot water pastry.  As I've mentioned before, pastry is not something I do very well. 

Meat, meat, meat and onions.

I didn't take any photos of the crust-making process, but it was pretty easy, except for one error on my part: the mixing bowl was waaaaay too small for the amount of flour and water involved. Oh well, what's one more bowl to wash?

The recipe instructs me to, "Line a rectangular pie mould with two-thirds of the dough," but I have nothing as tall and narrow as the mould in the picture.  Big loaf pan it is. 

Now I am supposed to top it with the rest of the pastry and then decorate it with small leaves cut from the leftover dough.  Well, I don't have a small leaf cookie cutter, so my choices were tiny hearts or flowers. 

Alas, no leaves.

To the oven!

Crusty goodness!

It had to bake for an hour and forty-five minutes.  Somewhere around the halfway mark, it started to smell and that smell was amazing!  Imagine the best beef pot pie bubbling away in the oven and that's what it smelled like.  Mmmm.

At this point, it has to cool until "quite cold" and them be removed from the mould.  Around 11:00 PM it was finally cool enough and I bravely tried to pop it out of the pan, but it wouldn't budge.  Farm Boy and I discussed various ways to get it out, but in the end I chickened out and just left it.  I poured my "aspic jelly" (the broth from the tongue, thickened with gelatine) in the holes and put it in the refrigerator overnight.

Day 3

Finally, we get to taste this beast!

So I can totally see how it would have been nice to have it removed from the pan for both the presentation and the cutting.  It took quite a bit of effort to get that first slice out and it was mangled beyond repair, but after that it was fine. I think I should have poured in more aspic jelly, but I was still pleased with it overall.  Look at that cheeky little egg hiding there in the center.  Surprise!

Ta-da!

And now for the taste test. As usual, Queen Lily was there to offer her services and opinions.

De-si-i-i-i-i-re!

 

Yes, this pleases us.

Give us more!  Now!

I mean it!

Meatball says, "WTF! Where's mine??" 

 

 

Verdict: It's really good!  The hot water pasty crust is delicious.  The filling was really good, but it mostly tasted like the tongue - very beefy.  I can see how this would be a great picnic food. It's sturdy enough to take with you, can be eaten cold, and it's very filling. It's very labor intensive, so I don't know that I would make it again, but if I did, I would probably use leftover roast or something as the filling, instead of going to the effort of using three different meats.

Thanks once again to Yinzerella for organizing this event!  Now go check out all those other pies!

Yinzerella at Dinner is Served 1972: Candy Apple Cheese Pie

Dr. Bobb of Dr. Bobb's Kitschen: Praline Pumpkin Pie

Battenburgbelle of Kitchen Confidence: Zucchini Pie

SS of A Book of Cookrye: Yul Brenner's Pie

Jenny of Silver Screen Suppers: Sagittarius Hamburger Pie

Surly of Vintage Recipe Cards: Lime Pie with Creme de Menthe

Taryn of Retro Foods for Modern Times: Lime Pie with Creme de Menthe

Poppy Crocker of Grannie Pantries: Apricot Mallow Pie

Camilla of Culinary Adventures with Camilla: Chocolate Angel Pie

Pieathalon 8! Tarte au Petit Suisse

Grab those forks, it's time for pie!

To recap the rules of Pieathalon:

1) You choose a vintage recipe and send it in
2) You receive a vintage recipe submitted by someone else
3) You make that recipe
4) You post about your experience

My contribution to Pieathalon was a Farm Boy family favorite, Osgood Pie. I was trying to play nice this year, so hopefully the recipient likes pies with nuts and raisins! 

My pie to bake comes from battenburgbelle at  Kitchen Confidence.  The recipe, La Tarte au Petit Suisse, comes from French Country Cooking by Elizabeth David, originally published in 1951 and still in print as recently as 2013.  After reading reviews online and trying this recipe, I am sorely tempted to buy a copy for myself.  Because I need another cookbook!

I like the cute cover illustration!

Pie pastry is my culinary nemesis, mostly because I get such inconsistent results.  I considered using a refrigerated pie crust, but since this recipe included a recipe for the crust (or paste) and I was feeling brave, I decided to give it a go.  I did have a purchased pie crust in the refrigerator (along with a beer), just in case things went sideways. 

The recipe calls for blind baking the pastry and recommends keeping a jar of dried beans on hand to use as weights for this purpose.  As it happens, I have been using the same old pinto beans for years, although mine are in a plastic bag, not a nice jar.  Farm Boy is of the opinion that they are still edible, but I have serious doubts about that.

Some very well-baked beans

Ta-da!  Blind baked and ready for the filling.

The recipe calls for Petit Suisse cheese, which I could not find.  Some Google searching suggested that I could substitute cream cheese thinned with a little milk.  I chose to use buttermilk, to add a little more flavor.  I also used orange zest in place of the orange flower water, as suggested in the recipe.

The filling, before adding the beaten egg whites

It took significantly longer to bake than the 15 to 20 minutes listed in the recipe.  I would say it was closer to 40 minutes before it started developing some browned bits on the top.  By the end, it had puffed up dramatically and smelled divine!

It smelled soooo good!

The puffiness didn't last long, though. By serving time, it was much thinner.

Pie baking day was also Serafina's birthday, or rather her found day.  She was found as a 3 week old kitten in someone's yard.  Our vet's office apparently keeps a list of gullible people and immediately called us.  How could we say no to this face?

I showed her the pie and sang happy birthday to her.  She was not impressed.  For all that floofiness, she can be a harsh critic sometimes.

Please stop, Mom.

By serving time, the pie was really thin, but great googley-moogley it was good!  It is lightly sweet, really creamy, with just a hint of orange, but the crust is what really makes it.  It is completely different than a normal pie crust.  It is thin and crunchy, reminiscent of a Norwegian krumkake or a pizzelle. 

 

Yum!

All of the taste testers liked this pie, including Queen Lily.  I gave her a tiny bit first, then had to eat the rest of my piece while holding her back with one arm.  Someone around here has taught her some bad habits.

Give me all the pie!

That is mine!

Thanks to Yinzerella at Dinner is Served 1972 for another fun Pieathalon! 

You can read about all the other fabulous Pieathalon pies at the links below:

Osgood Pie at A Book of Cookrye

Chocolate-Crusted Coffee Pie at Grannie Pantries

Tarte a l’Orange at Recipes 4 Rebels

Surprise Fudge Pie at Silver Screen Suppers

Rum and Butterscotch Pie at Vintage Recipe Cards

Save Your Marriage Meat Pie at Dr. Bobb's Kitschen 

Ozark Pie at Retro Food for Modern Times

Mahogany Pie at Dinner is Served 1972

 

Scotch Apple Pie

I first made this pie a little over four years ago.  We really liked it, so of course I promptly forgot which cookbook it was in.  I had shared a photo of it, so it popped up in my memories every year, punishing me for my forgetfulness.  However, a few days ago I was going through some old photos and saw not only the picture of the pie, but a picture of the recipe and the cookbook, too.  Hooray!

 

Talk About Good! by the Junior League of Lafayette, Lousiana

I found this cookbook at an antique store several years ago.  I picked up up, carried it around, put it back, left, drove back the next day and bought it.  My copy is the 1967 edition (printed in 1971), but according to the Junior League of Lafayette's website, it is still in print and available for purchase more than 50 years later!

Farm Boy was a little disappointed that no scotch whisky was involved

Rule #1 of baking: make sure to spill some flour!

Thermobaker instructions

Because I am a Chambers nerd, I chose to bake it in the Thermobaker in the Thermowell.  With the well preheated for a few minutes, you can bake an 8" pie with about 15 minutes of gas, then 30 to 40 minutes of retained heat cooking.  Have I ever mentioned that I adore this stove?  Oh, I have?  Sorry!  

It smelled divine while baking!

I was too impatient to wait for it to cool, so my servings were not very photogenic, but it was as tasty as I remembered!  I would say it's closer to a crisp or a cobbler than a pie, since there is no bottom crust.  It is fairly sweet, too, so perhaps the sugar could be cut back a bit or maybe serve it with whipped cream to buffer it a little.  But the combination of the crunchy brown sugar topping and the clear apple flavor of the filling really work well together, so I will be making this again in the future now that I have rediscovered the recipe.

Tansey - 5th Annual Pieathalon

So a few weeks ago I am checking my email and what do I find? An invitation to participate in the 5th Annual Pieathalon! I played it all casual in my response, but I immediately ran downstairs to tell Farm Boy.  Well, "ran" is probably an exaggeration, but I did go downstairs and scream, "OMG! OMG! The cool kids are talking to me!"  He was very impressed.

The rules of Pieathalon are simple:
1) You choose a vintage recipe and send it in 
2) You receive a vintage recipe submitted by someone else
3) You make the recipe
4) You post about your experience

I looked through a lot of cookbooks for my submission and while I saw a lot of really nice sounding pie recipes, the one that really, truly spoke to me did not sound nice at all.  Heh heh heh.  I hope Jenny of Silver Screen Suppers who got stuck with Sweet Onion Pie (with raisins) can find it in her heart to forgive me.  Or at least never finds out where I live.

On the other end of the spectrum from a dessert with onions and raisins, the recipe I received - courtesy of Battenburgbelle - is full of heavy cream, eggs, ladyfinger cookies and sherry.  Oooh, promising!

The recipe is from Mary and Vincent Price’s Come Into The Kitchen Cook Book (1969). 

I happen to have a copy of this book (big surprise, I know).  It only has a few actual photos, but the whole book is full of cute illustrations like these. 

A cat!  You know that gets points from me.

I meant to take one of those "here are all my ingredients" photos, but I was distracted by The Oven of Regret.

It's actually a Knapp-Monarch Redi-Baker from the 1950s.  And it ended up in my kitchen because of a (possibly winey) evening of online shopping.  It has been sitting on the kitchen counter for about a week, just daring me to straighten out that old cloth cord and plug it in.  Since I had a little leftover pie crust and Farm Boy was away for the day (and thus I wouldn't kill both of us when it burst into flames), I decided to plug that bad boy in and make:

Pie crust cookies!

No sparks erupted when I plugged it in or turned it on.  There was a slight aroma of burning dust (with a piquant hint of musty old house) while it heated, but no flames or electrical shocks and the thermostat even seemed to work.  I was afraid that the heat would be uneven, given the small size of the oven space, but it worked like a champ.  Thank you for performing so well after 60+ years, Oven of Regret! I'm still not quite over my buyer's remorse, but I'm glad to know you aren't out to kill me.

Now, back to the pie.

Step 1 of the recipe called for cooking the egg yolks, cream, sugar, sherry, ladyfingers and nutmeg until thickened.  I wasn't sure how well to break the ladyfingers down, but they ended up cooking down into very small crumbs.

Step 2 was to add some green food coloring, if desired.  Normally I wouldn't bother with food coloring, but this is for the Pieathalon.  One simply does not commit half-assery during Pieathalon!

Ta-da!  It's green(ish)!

Step 3 calls for the egg whites to be beaten very stiff, then folded into the hot custard.  That mixture is then poured into the pie shell. 

I really wish I had taken a photo of the empty pie shell.  It was one of the better ones I have ever made.  Pastry is not my forte. 

Step 4 has us bake the pie at 450F for 10 minutes, reduce the heat to 350F and bake for 30 more minutes. 

 

True to the description, the pie did puff up quite a bit and was nicely golden brown on top.  After cooling, it settled down to a normal pie height.

Now time for the tasting!

Farm Boy and my sister agreed to be taste testers for me, but the only one brave enough to be photographed was the queen of the house, Lily.

I am here to help

Chomp!

Blech!

How could you?

Results: Disappointing.

We all thought, based on the ingredients, that this would be really good.  But it has hardly any flavor at all.  If you use your imagination, you can almost taste the sherry, but overall it has the flavor profile of a graham cracker, but not quite as sweet.  And to add to the sadness, instead of a nice, creamy pie, the crushed ladyfingers just end up giving it the texture of cooked and then cooled/ congealed steel cut oats. 

In the end, while I'm sad to not have a pie that I want to add to my repertoire, I am thrilled to have participated in the 5th Annual Pieathalon.  Thank you to Yinzerella at Dinner is Served 1972 for organizing this event and for inviting me to join in on the fun.  And to Jenny of Silver Screen Suppers, I'm sorry about the onion and raisin pie!  Okay, not very sorry! <cue maniacal laughter here>

To read about the adventures of the other Pieathletes, visit their blogs:

Yinzerella from Dinner is Served 1972 with Kate's Pie
Surly at Vintage Recipe Cards with Dutch Peaches and Cream Pie
Kelli at Kelli's Kitchen with Chocolate Mousse Pie
Dr. Bobb of Dr. Bobb's Kitschen with Ritz Cracker Mock Apple Pie
Kelly from Velveteen Lounge Kitsch-en with Marguerite Patten's Cheese Pie
Jenny of Silver Screen Suppers with Sweet Onion Pie
Poppy Crocker at Grannie Pantries makes Strawberry Ginger Pie
The Battenburg Belle from Battenburg Belle serves up Frosty Vanilla Pie
Sally over at Mycustardpie.com with Mock Pecan Pie
Taryn from RetroFoodForModerntimes makes Vincent Price Pineapple Meringue
Camilla of Culinary Adventures with Camilla with Peaches and Cream Tart
Peter Fuller, Curator of the Vincent Price Legacy UK makes Puddin n'Pie
Renee Quintana from Tortillas and Honey dishes up French Raspberry Pie
The Unofficial Mad Men CookBook presents Aloha Meringue Pie
Retro Mimi of Once Upon a Salad gives us The Millionaire
Sue of Vintage Cookbookery makes Yul Brenner's Walnut Pie
Wendy from A Day in the Life on the Farm presents Tyler Pie
Clara Silverstein of Heritagerecipebox.com makes Olde English Egg Nog Pie
S.S. of A Book of Cookrye makes Cool Mint Cookie Pie
Debra of Eliot's Eats with Apricot Meringue Pie
Judy Gelman and Vicki Levy Krupp from BookClub CookBook serve up Weight Watcher's "Almost a Pie"
Greg Swenson of Recipes4Rebels makes Seafoam Cantaloupe Pie
Kaci of Homicidal Homemaker creates Lemon Beer Sponge Pie