spiced pear, gorgonzola, and toasted walnut pie in a buttermilk leaf lard crust: a pie party

 

"It's hard to get together when the streets are so wide

it's harder to love when it's easy to hide. 

So when the leaves fall...

give all that you get to Tendernessee."

-Big Kitty, Tendernessee

Large tracts of land like wide streets be damned, I'm having a get together, an intimate gathering of the virtual sort. A few weeks back I was talking with some lovely women that live an unfortunate distance from my little bungalow in Tennessee, Sarah (of The Vanilla Bean Blog), Stephanie (of Desserts for Breakfast), and Hannah (of Honey & Jam), in the virtual town square (a.k.a. Twitter) about pie, the wanting, the baking, and the sharing of. We wished we could get together over pie, real pie. I still do. And I hope to, hope to trade crust secrets, listen to an endless shuffle of records, collectively pine for vintage medium format cameras, to talk with that abandon one discovers when conversing with people who share your passions.

A "virtual pie party" hosted on each of our sites was proposed as the next best thing to being able to sit down face-to-face. So I gathered floral, honey scented pears from River Ridge Farms at the market (quite unlike any pears I've ever had, unparalleled really), made a crust of leaf lard from Link 41 & Cruze Farm's buttermilk, and churned up some toasted oak & caramel ice cream with milk from Fall Creek Farms and eggs from Tant Hill. In case we need to do this thing à la mode, you know.

Pie cooling and kettle on, we gather on the front porch, where already a jack-o-lantern roosts and it smells of burning leaves. The living room window is wide open and the psychedelic blue grass of Big Kitty, the stalwart collaboration of some friends & local musical luminaries, spins on the turntable in the sitting room, all mewling heart strings, fiddle grit, and that Appalachian timbre, the back of beyond love & misery. Slices of pie are doled out still warm with ice cream dripping lasciviously down the sides , and we talk over the hushed clink of forks and mugs of coffee or tea, whatever your poison be.

No doubt when side B fades to crackles and pops, a menagerie of records will take their turn, and by the time the sun sinks beneath the hills of the North Shore you'll inevitably have heard everything from The Honeycombs to Ray Peterson's "Corrine, Corrina" to those poets after my own heart Nick Cave, Leonard Cohen, and Jeff Mangum followed by those Dixie staples of Patsy Cline & Hank Williams Sr., the raucous Wanda Jackson, and whatever else strikes my capricious fancy. This is a pie party after all. (If you actually manage to take a listen to all of those links, you won't regret it. I understand if you don't. But do. And blame Sarah & Stephanie. They're responsible for exciting the record nerd in me!)






You hear it all the time, the surprise and gratitude with which people talk about the friends they've come to know through this idiosyncratic enterprise of the "food blog". Well, I'm the new kid on the block, and I have to say, already, it's so. You see, I'm a homebody, a book worm, a girl that likes to hide behind the lens of the camera and finds the company of her life-mate to be sufficient most days. My favorite haunts are my bed, porch, bath, and kitchen. Going out to me means the farmer's market or the grocery. I can't abide small talk. The only partying I do is of the dinner (or pie...) variety. As a fellow blogger once said, I think I have more types of flour in my pantry than friends. This is just so and how I like it, quality over quantity, and this is why getting to know people through this space has been so satisfying, in short, they are fanatics of my variety that not only share my enthusiasm for photography and food but art of all kinds as well. Quality folks, indeed.

Drop by for Sarah's mini Peach Pie Jars here, and dig into Stephanie's deep dish Peach & Lemon Verbena Pie here, and stay tuned for our next host Hannah's pie (who, I happily hear, finally got or is soon to get a working oven again!)

Spiced Pear, Gorgonzola, and Toasted Walnut Pie in a Buttermilk Leaf Lard Crust

yields one 9" double crust pie

From local pig fat to buttermilk, pears to raw milk to fresh eggs, the front porch to Dixie ballads, this afternoon pie is a little bit of Tendernessee from me to you.

For Buttermilk Leaf Lard Crust

adapted from Epicurious & Thomas Keller's Buttery Pastry Shell

This is my new favorite pie crust for sweet pastries (and for savory, simply omit sugar). If you don't have a stand mixer the crust can be made the traditional way by simply mixing all the dry ingredients, cutting in the cold fat with a pastry cutter until it resembles course meal & no pieces larger than pea sized remain (there should be pieces of fat left though), and then mixing the buttermilk in until it just comes together when pinched being careful to not overmix.

Ingredients

2 1/2 cups (313 g) all purpose flour (divided in half)
2 Tbsp sugar
1 tsp kosher salt
1/2 cup (1 stick) cold, unsalted butter, diced
1/2 cup chilled leaf lard (you can substitute butter or vegetable shortening here)
1/4 cup + 2 Tbsp buttermilk

Directions

Combine 1 1/4 cup (about 156 g) flour, sugar, and salt in the bowl of standing mixer. Set aside the other 1 1/4 cup flour. With the mixer on low add the diced cold butter and bits of cold lard a handful at a time. Mix until thoroughly combined.

Add other half of flour. Mix until just combined. Add buttermilk and mix until dough just comes together. Divide dough in half. Place each half on a piece of plastic wrap, form into a disc, and chill at least to two hours (preferably 3) and up to one day. Dough can be frozen, wrapped tightly, up to three months at this point.

For Pear Pie Filling

The gorgonzola and orange blossom water give what would otherwise be a rather rote filling a lot of personality. The traditional salty-sweet combo fares great in this sweet pie.

Ingredients

1/2 cup (2 oz) walnuts, toasted and roughly chopped

5 firm pears, peeled, cored & sliced thin, about 1/8" (I use a handheld mandolin)

1/4 cup lemon juice

1 tsp orange blossom water

1/2 cup (100 g) sugar

1/4 cup (50 g) dark brown sugar (light brown can be substituted)

3/4 tsp kosher salt

pinch of cayenne (generous if you're me)

1 tsp ground cinnamon

1 Tbsp cornstarch

1/4 cup lemon juice

1 tsp orange blossom water (optional but a nice touch)

1-2 oz gorgonzola dolce (optional, use according to your taste)

turbinado sugar, for sprinkling

heavy cream, for brushing

Directions

Heat oven to 425° F. 

Toss pears with the lemon juice and orange blossom water once sliced. Mix sugar, dark brown sugar, salt, cayenne, cinnamon, and cornstarch in a bowl to combine. Toss the pears to coat with the sugar and spice mixture.

Roll out one half of the crust to fit the bottom of a 9" pie pan. Place dough in pan, trim edge to 1", tuck under, and crimp. Fill the crust with layers of pears, sprinkling between layers with the toasted walnuts. Once the pie is filled, dot the top with gorgonzola cheese (if using). 

Top pie with the other half of the pie crust. You can do any sort of design you like or just do a simple double crust. (This Martha Stewart how-to is a great resource for decorative pie crust ideas.) Brush top crust with heavy cream and sprinkle with turbinado sugar. 

Bake for 15 minutes at 425° and then reduce the heat to 375° and bake for another 30-40 minutes or until the crust is golden and the filling is cooked through. After the first fifteen minutes, I use a crust shield on the edges of my pie to prevent it from getting too brown or burning. You can simply place aluminum foil over the outer crust to achieve this as well. 

Cool on a rack & serve with a scoop of homemade oak & caramel ice cream for autumnal Tennessee in dessert form. Best shared, naturally, with friends. 

sweet potato & ricotta gnocchi with buttermilk mornay, fresh figs, and pancetta

So. I made this gnocchi on TV today. Wait. Let me rephrase that. I attempted to demonstrate how to make this gnocchi dough on TV today. What I actually did was just kind of mush my hands around in a pile of egg yolk, ricotta, and sweet potato. Six minutes is, apparently, a lot shorter than it seems. I did, however, succeed in making a very brilliant mess. The mess, a real sticky, floury one, it was tops. So don't do that at home! Do what I say to do below instead. Then you will have beautiful, fluffy pillows of lightly spiced goodness. That said, it was such fun, a learning experience if you will, and next time I'm going to fully embrace TV magic and come with everything already made. Everything. And there will be a next time. And that next time will be a dadgum pie. I will vanquish the short cooking demo TV segment with pie, you'll see. 

After I was off camera I proceeded to finish making my dough in a calm fashion. I wasn't about to let perfectly good homemade ricotta and local sweet potatoes and egg go to waste. Them's, as they say, good eatin'. I know gnocchi can have a reputation as a bit of a bear to work with, but I assure you this dough is exceedingly simple. (So simple, in fact, I delusionally thought I could do it in a few minutes my first time on camera...) 

All it takes is a sense of touch. Think with your fingers. You don't want your dough too sticky to handle nor do you want to add too much flour. So just add flour bit by bit, I usually start with half a cup and add 1/4 cup at a time after that up to 1 1/4 cups total. So just add it until your gnocchi is a workable, soft play-dough-like consistency. Adding too much flour will make your gnocchi tough, so easy does it. The excellent thing about this is once you've made your gnocchi and lined them all up on your baking sheet like little soldiers you can freeze them (on the sheet tray to prevent sticking) and then toss them all in a ziplock in the freezer and keep them for up to 3 months. Which means that nothing stands between you and impromptu homemade gnocchi but a pot of boiling water, about 3 minutes, and deciding what to put with them. And I'm here to help with that last part. Figs! Buttermilk mornay (aka cheese sauce)! Pancetta (aka bacon)! If this seems odd, just trust me. It'll be real good, baby. You'll see. 

We eat a lot of sweet potatoes when they abound at the market, specifically, we eat a lot of baked sweet potatoes. Butter, salt, and little else. But even for sweet potato enthusiasts such as ourselves (I think the high levels of potassium excite us...), baked sweet potatoes night after night can get boring. Herein lies the solution. 

The other great thing about these gnocchi are how affordable they are. I don't usually go on about how quick, cheap, and convenient things are (though these are all of those things). I think that sort of mindset and language reduces your meals to a love affair in the red light district. Even still, the beautiful thing about shopping at the market and using raw ingredients instead of preprepared ones is that you do save money in cutting out the middle man. Added bonus, you get a far better tasting product and your money goes to your community. Wins abound.

Sweet Potato Ricotta Gnocchi with Buttermilk Mornay Sauce, Fresh Figs, & Pancetta

Velvety is a food word, a food word that one arguably should eschew. That, unfortunately, just isn't practical in this situation. These are, for sure, velvety. The sauce is velvety. Hell, the figs are velvety. The crispy pancetta adds just the right amount of crunch to offset it. And the flavor profile is a well orchestrated team effort. The lightly spiced gnocchi are creamy and ever so slightly sweet as are the figs while the buttermilk mornay chimes in with tangy, salty notes which are further punctuated by the pancetta, and all of it is brightened with an herbaceous bite from either chives or sage. A peppery green like watercress or arugula would be good here too. This is nonna meets grand-mère meets grandma, an Italian classic in a French sauce with Southern flavors. In short, no matter where you are or hail from, this is comfort food for fall. 

Serves 4-6

Ingredients

For Gnocchi:

2 lbs sweet potatoes

1 large egg yolk

2/3 cup whole milk ricotta (Drained if using store bought, but I make my own using this recipe.)

1-1 ½ cups all purpose flour

pinch freshly grated nutmeg

¼ tsp cinnamon

For Mornay Sauce:

2 Tbsp butter

3 Tbsp all purpose flour

2 cups buttermilk

fresh grated nutmeg

cayenne

¼ tsp salt

2 oz grated gruyere cheese (about ½ cup, packed)

To Serve:

12 figs, quartered

6 slices pancetta, fried crispy and crumbled

fresh chives, chopped fine (sage is also good here)

To make gnocchi:

Prick potatoes all over with a fork and steam in microwave wrapped in damp paper towels until tender all the way through when pierced & fully cooked. Rotate half way through cooking, about 3-5 minutes per side for medium sized potatoes. Alternately, roast in a 400° F oven about 50-60 minutes.

While potatoes are still hot, handling with towels, slice in half. Scoop flesh out and press through a potato ricer into a rectangle (not a pile). Alternately you can use a food mill or box grater to shred the potatoes. Let cool until about room temperature. (Note: the potatoes are riced hot and into a rectangle to maximize their release of steam because the less moisture in your potatoes the less flour you will need to add resulting in lighter gnocchi. Also, I do not salt my gnocchi as salt draws in moisture, making for mushy gnocchi. Rather, I generously salt the cooking water. The more you know...)

Drizzle potatoes with egg yolk, crumble the ricotta on top, and sprinkle ½ cup of flour on top. Using a bench scraper or spatula, cut the flour, yolk, and ricotta into the potatoes using a chopping motion until beginning to become incorporated. Then start using the bench scraper to fold the mixture together. Sprinkle with an additional ¼ cup of flour, and chop/fold it in. At this point I switch to using my hands, lightly floured. 

Gather the dough into a ball. If the dough is still too sticky to do this, work in up to an additional ¼ cup flour. Pat dough into a disc. If disc is too sticky, sprinkle with another ¼ cup flour.  Work in flour, if needed, until just not too sticky to handle. Form dough into a compact log and let rest 5 minutes.

Cut log into 8 individual segments. Lightly flour work surface. Roll one segment out at a time into 1” thick logs. Cut logs into individual pieces, about 1”. To create grooves, the gnocchi can be rolled on a gnocchi board or the tines of the fork. This step is optional. Place formed gnocchi on a parchment lined baking sheet. Refrigerate until ready to cook if cooking soon, otherwise the gnocchi can be frozen on the sheet tray and then placed into a ziplock bag and kept in the freezer up to 3 months. To cook frozen gnocchi just put directly from freezer into boiling water just as with fresh gnocchi, do not thaw.

To make sauce:

Melt 2 tbsp butter over low heat. Stir in 3 Tbsp flour. Bring roux to a bubble on medium low and let cook about two minutes, careful not to brown. Meanwhile warm buttermilk slowly and ¼ tsp salt until just warm. Do not get it too hot or it will curdle, just warm it gently. Whisking constantly slowly pour warm buttermilk into roux. Bring to a boil over medium high heat and whisk constantly until thickened. Remove from heat, stir in fresh nutmeg & cayenne to taste. Stir in cheese until fully melted. Taste and adjust seasoning if desired. Sauce can be kept warm over a simmering water bath, stirring occasionally to prevent skin from forming or it can be just set aside, uncovered, if using shortly. Again, stir to prevent skin.

Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Add gnocchi. Give them a gentle stir after a few seconds to prevent sticking. Cook about 2 minutes or until they float to the top. Remove, draining well, with a slotted spoon or spider. Toss gently with mornay sauce, pancetta, and figs. Sprinkle with chives and serve immediately.