Paul's Pie: Deconstructed BLT Tart

Deconstructed BLT Tart

Paul wanted a bacon crust. 

"Do you want bacon in the crust?" I asked.

"No," he answered.  "I want a crust that IS bacon."

I happily googled "bacon crust recipe" and discovered this very promising recipe.

"How about this?" I asked.

"No," Paul said.  "I want crust AND bacon crust."


Well!  I do like a culinary conundrum, but folks who know me know that I cook more comfortably from recipes.  Still, I wanted to satisfy Paul's quest for pie.  Since it's already June and a crust + bacon crust seems pretty heavy to me, I decided to fill the crust with seasonable vegetables rather than something quiche-like--and backing away from bacon and eggs led me to the BLT, which always tastes best with summer tomatoes.

What follows is my first effort to make a seasonal version of Paul's Pie, which cobbles together the recipe above and vamps on David Lebovitz's French Tomato Tart recipe, which I've made several times with stupendous results.  The bacon comes from Godfrey Bros. Meats, the arugula from my Sterling Farm CSA share on the advice of Jonathan Darby, and the tomatoes from Brogue Hydroponics, who manage to grow delicious tomatoes in early June!  The spinach and oregano were from my tiny shady garden.

Side view of a slice.

This recipe, like many, is pretty easy but takes both time and patience--and you have to trust your own cooking judgment, which I know from personal experience can be hard.  I'm sure you could use a store-bought pie crust instead of making your own tart or pie crust, but I encourage you to make your own.  Crusts are very easy to make, and the recipe below has always worked for me AND is big enough for the 10" spring-form pan.  I've taken lots of photos to guide the beginner.  Humidity really affects baking, since the more water there is in the air, the less you need to add to your recipe.  When I made this, it was so humid that 2 Tablespoons of water was almost too much!

Local and Seasonal: Pumpkin Stuffed With Everything Good

Pumpkin fresh from the oven.

It's September 2010.  My friend Stacie calls me, and in a voice full of excitement, tells me, "NPR just did an interview with a chef who makes a recipe you have to try.  It's called Pumpkin Stuffed With Everything Good.  I know you'll love it!"  Stacie was correct, and that was the day I discovered and fell in love with Dorie Greenspan.  This recipe comes from Around My French Table, which I am very sorry to say I still don't own.  That day, though,  I went to google.com, and a quick search yielded up a version of this recipe on Epicurious.com, (which I encourage you to use if you have not already tried it, though I prefer allrecipes.com's ratings system). 

Flash forward to October 15, 2011, when I'm on my second go with this recipe since the pumpkin season hit.  While pumpkin growers in the Northeast had their crops devastated by Hurricane Irene and Tropical Storm Lee, I still managed to find two PA pumpkins at the Whole Foods in Mt. Washington, MD, and I shipped them back home with me.  I like the "bonne idée" section at the end of the recipe; both times I've used chard, the first time I subbed in 1.5 cups of brown rice, and this time I left out the thyme and added in about a tablespoon of ginger to complement the Star Anise and Ginger Chicken that I'm going to have as the main with my stuffed pumpkin tonight.

Try this recipe!  If enough people eat Pumpkin Stuffed With Everything Good, maybe stores will carry pie pumpkins after Halloween!

Friday's Tip: Egg-cellent Advice

A Tip  Today's post is all about the glorious, wonderful, incredible, edible egg.  I feel sorry for my egg-eschewing friends, since these little guys are really quite an amazing package:

• They are the perfect protein.  Really, there is nothing better nutritionally.
• They are the cheapest animal protein you can buy, even if you get organic eggs.  Let's say you buy a dozen eggs at $4.00, and you eat 2 at a time--that's a whopping $.67 per meal.  Thankfully, I can get local, pastured eggs cheaper than that.  Serious Eats recently confirmed my suspicion that eggs taste like eggs regardless of how footloose and fancy-free the chickens are, UNLESS they're pasturized (and then they suck).  
• At about 70 calories per large egg, they are an excellent low-calorie, low-fat, high-protein snack, particularly if you are cutting calories, hungry, and don't want to sabotage your weight-loss goals.  Protein is very filling!  I've been keeping boiled eggs in the fridge just for this purpose, and they really do the trick.

Here are some tips to help you get the most out of these little powerhouses:

1. Fresh eggs are desirable for baking, particularly if you need to separate white from yolk.  Less fresh eggs taste the same, but the white deteriorates with age and is less separable.
2. Older eggs are preferable for boiling, since the peels will come off easier.  Boiling, in fact, is an excellent use of eggs on the verge of passing their Best By date.
3. Not sure if your eggs are fresh?  Fill a large pot or bowl with water, and put them in.  If they sink, they're good; if they float, very delicately but decisively throw them out (the reason they float is that they have begun oxidizing).
4. Don't pay more for egg-shell color, which is determined by chicken color and does not affect taste or quality; instead, pay more for eggs from humanely-kept chickens!
5. How to hard-boil eggs with energy efficiency in mind: Fill a pot with cold tap water.  Place eggs in.  Sprinkle liberally with the cheapest salt you own (egg shells can crack, and the salt fills the cracks to keep the insides from leaking out).  Cover (optional step, but it helps them boil faster so saves energy).  Bring to a full rolling boil.  Cover if you haven't already and turn off heat.  Let sit 12 minutes.  Uncover and add a tray's worth of ice cubes.  Let sit 10 minutes.  Remove from water and place in fridge.  N.B.  This process takes less than 30 minutes, but requires you to hang out in the kitchen.
6. Secret ingredient to boil fresh eggs to help with peeling: 1 teaspoon baking soda. (h/t Summer Tomato for this excellent video--I always buy farm-fresh eggs and was losing lots of white when peeling.  This trick seriously works!)
7. Secret trick to separate eggs: Do it when they're cold and the whites are at their firmest, and then bring to room temperature to bake.
8. Have extra egg whites?  Eat them within 2-3 days, or freeze them in ice cube trays and store till ready to use in freezer.
9. Have extra egg yolks?  You can freeze them, too, but you need to liberally sprinkle them with sugar OR salt so that they keep their consistency--if you plan to make a lemon curd or flan with them, for instance, choose sugar.  You have to have a plan in mind for them to know which to choose.
10. Finally, don't be afraid of the cholesterol or other bad press eggs have gotten.  They are a great food for everyone but truly a dieter's friend. 

Here are some recipes that I recommend, all of which are easy and yummy:
A lowfat Egg Salad.
A lowfat version of Eggs in Purgatory.
My current favorite dessert, Lemon Curd Tart with Olive Oil.
A great use for summer's cherry tomatoes, Cherry Tomato Frittata (I use only half the parmesan, and then add hot sauce).

Local Pork Butt to Puerco Pibil

Back in the triple-digit heat bath that was July, a friend on Facebook posted this recipe for Robert Rodriguez's Puerco Pibil (made famous in Once Upon a Time in Mexico).  I made a mental note (and a comment on her Facebook) to make this recipe come the cooler days of Fall when having the oven on for four hours is no hardship and might even bring welcome heat. 

The highs are in the 70s, the lows in the 50s, and it is time, since I am cooking for 8 this evening, including two people with gluten sensitivities.  Dinner will be a potluck: I am providing the main dish with homemade corn tortillas (using Bob's Red Mill's masa harina and recipe) and chocolate sorbet (my farewell to summer), my roommate is providing Italian Cornmeal Cake, and the guests are bringing the rest.  Since one of my guests cannot eat hot peppers, I threw in two poblanos from the garden rather than habañeros to make the marinade, and I'm making pico de gallo as a topping for those of us who want more kick.

Who knew I had to move to York, PA, to start cooking Tex-Mex? 

Puerco Pibil á la Robert Rodriguez

Makes 15 servings

Thanks to my local butcher from Three Sons, I now know that pork butt and pork shoulder are the same thing.  I also learned that it can come with bone, so I carved off the meat and stuck the bones in a freezer bag for future use, most likely to help flavor a winter bean soup.  I was left with about 4 pounds of meat.

The only ingredient not readily available where I live is the annatto seeds; you can order them through Penzey's.

5 Tablespoons annatto (achiote) seeds

2 teaspoons cumin seeds

1 Tablespoon peppercorns

8 allspice berries

½ tsp. whole cloves

2 habanero chiles

½ cup orange juice

½ cup white vinegar

2 Tbsps. salt

8 cloves of garlic

Juice of 5 lemons

Splash of tequila x 2

5 pounds pork butt (or shoulder)

Banana leaves or heavy-duty aluminum foil

White or Spanish rice or taco shells for serving

1.  Place the annatto, cumin, peppercorns, allspice, and cloves in a spice grinder and process to a fine powder.

2.  Carefully remove the seeds and veins from the chiles and chop coarsely. (Habaneros are very hot; even breathing the fumes may make you cough. Removing the veins and seeds ensures the dish is fiery but not painfully hot. You can also substitute a milder chile.)

3.  Process the orange juice, vinegar, chiles, salt, and garlic in a blender or food processor until liquefied. Add the lemon juice and tequila.  Combine with spice blend in a large, self-sealing plastic bag.

4.  Cut the pork into 2-inch chunks. Place in a large, self-sealing plastic bag with the marinade. Seal bag and turn to evenly coat the meat. Refrigerate for 8 to 24 hours, turning occasionally.  (Overnight = better.)

5.  Heat oven to 325 degrees. Remove the meat from the marinade and wrap tightly in banana leaves or foil so no steam can escape. Place packet in roasting pan and roast four hours. Open packet carefully; the meat should shred easily with a fork. Serve with rice or shred with two forks and use as taco filling.

Per serving: 240 calories (35 percent from fat), 9.3 g fat (2.9 g saturated, 3.8 g monounsaturated), 92.2 mg cholesterol, 33.1 g protein, 5.2 g carbohydrates, 0.7 g fiber, 1,037 mg sodium.

Time to Make Pretzels, and That's No Lye!

I'm a huge-huge fan of yeasty, chewy pretzels, and the NYT published this recipe in May that I've been saving, with an eye toward purchasing some lye when I had some extra money.  Thanks to Harold McGee, the best kitchen chemist ever, I now have the means of making a lye-substitute without shelling out any dough.*

*Puns are a necessary part of a balanced diet.