In my last post for Joe's Special, I griped about how it was hard to be on a low carb diet and try to make as many of the 101 recipes as possible. When I wrote that post, little did I know that I was standing on the bring of the sugary abyss known as Halloween. Halloween came and went, and with it almost all of what willpower I had. For the past week and a half I have fallen off the wagon and as usual, when I fall off, I fall off hard. I've gone from virtually no sweets and starches to enough to choke a rhino. From the kids' Halloween Candy to breakfast cereal to rolls with meals and of course desserts. Since I had caved to my inner urges already and my in-laws were in town, I decided to make a special meal of Chicken Stroganoff (a modified version of the Saveur Beef Stroganoff recipe, using chicken and noodles instead of beef and matchstick potatoes) and Sweet Potato Pie.
I'm not usually a big fan of pie, so it is not a big surprise that I had never had Sweet Potato Pie, but with the exception of throwing a Rich's pre-made frozen pie into the oven at my first cooking job (Don's Groceries in Royalton Center) I had never made any kind of pie. This recipe was fairly simple and, spoiler, tasted fantastic.
Sweet Potato Pie Ingredients:
1 3/4 cups flour
8 tbsp. unsalted butter, cubed and chilled, plus 8 tbsp. melted and cooled
1 tsp. Kosher salt
2 cups boiled and mashed sweet potatoes
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup evaporated milk
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 eggs, lightly beaten
In the entry for this recipe, Jane and Michael Stern, SAVEUR contributing editors note that this recipe comes from Mrs. Bonner, a cafe owner in Crawfordville, Georgia. The secret to the bright color of the pie is that the sweet potatoes are boiled rather than baked, leaving them bright orange.
Though I haven't made Sweet Potato Pie, I have made plenty of sweet potatoes. Mashed sweet potatoes were a favorite of the kids when they were younger and still a staple at the holiday table. When making sweet potatoes, many people peel, then cube and boil them, but I find it much easier to boil them whole first, cool them a bit and then peel them. I put six medium sweet potatoes in a stock pot and covered them with water over high heat. Once boiling, I lowered the heat to medium and let cook for 30 minutes.
While the potatoes bubbled away on the stove top, I placed the flour, cubed butter and a 1/2 tsp. of salt in my food processor and pulsed until pea sized crumbles formed, then added 1/2 cup of ice cold water and pulsed a few more times until a dough formed.
With the dough in the fridge, I microwaved the remaining butter until it had melted. I've found that when I melting butter for baking that if I melt on high heat it gets too hot and takes quite a long time to cool. I usually put it in the microwave for 45 seconds at 50% power, which gets the butter just about melted and the residual heat (with the help of a quick stir) melts it completely. That way it is at a lower temperature and fully cools in less time.
A short time later the potatoes had finished cooking and I quickly placed them in an ice water bath to stop the cooking process. Once cooled, all that is needed is a quick, shallow slice down the middle of the potato and the skins pop right off when you apply a little pressure with your fingers. I made about 3x the amount of potatoes needed for this recipe, figuring that I could use them for dinner the next night, saving me prep time.
The timing was perfect as 30 minutes had elapsed since I had put the dough in the fridge. I started pre-heating the oven at 375 degrees, took the dough out and quickly rolled it out on my floured counter top. If you want a flaky crust it is important to handle the dough as little as possible and to keep it as cold as possible. By doing this you limit the amount of gluten that is produced in the process (the protein that makes bread so wonderfully chewy, but not very helpful in creating a flaky pie crust).
It is not vital that you roll the dough out to a perfect circle. I tried to figure out what the outline of my dough looked like and came up with either the Millennium Falcon or a Rorschach Test. It is important thought to make sure that you roll it out until it is an 1/8 of an inch thick and that you place your pie tin upside down on the dough to make sure you have about 2 inches extra dough around the tin. It's discouraging to have to start rolling it out again if you find that you haven't rolled it out enough.
Once rolled out, fold the dough in half, gently, then pull on top of the pie tin and unfold. Lightly press the dough into the tin, making sure to push out the air that might be trapped under the dough. Once the dough is flat to the tin, gently press the dough on the rim of the pan, then run a paring knife around the pan, cutting off the excess dough. Then either using your fingers or a fork, crimp the edge of the crust, sealing it gently to the tin. I actually had enough dough left over from this recipe to make a cherry tart as well, which was a hit with the kiddos.
Once the crust is finished, pour in the sweet potato mixture, smoothing out the surface with a rubber spatula. Pop it into the pre-heated oven until the crust is brown and flaky - about 1 hour.
Let the pie cool completely before serving as the filling needs to settle a bit before it is cut. The pie was a hit with the in-laws. Kim mentioned that it had the texture of pumpkin pie, but was lighter. She really didn't taste the sweet potatoes at all, just sweet, with a heavy vanilla flavor. My mother-in-law said it reminded her of the flavor of vanilla ice cream. Personally for me, the vanilla flavor and overall sweetness were a little too much. I would have like to have more of the sweet potato flavor. The crust was good, but could have been baked a bit more. I baked the pie for an hour and it could have probably stayed in for another five minutes or so. When making this again, I would cut the sugar a bit and cut the vanilla as well, probably by 1/2. Perhaps scraping a 1/2 vanilla pod into the evaporated milk instead of the vanilla extract would give the pie a more muted vanilla flavor, an undertone rather than the predominant taste. Still, with a good cup of coffee, it was tasty.
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| Credit: Todd Coleman |
Another recipe done - another that I would try again, with modifications. Out of the 11 recipes that I have made thus far, there is only one that I would probably say I wouldn't make again (Joe's Special). I wonder if that speaks to the "classic" nature of the recipes (Saveur did call the list the "101 Classic Recipes") or wide range of tastes. Looking through the rest of the list, there are plenty of things that I have never eaten before and I'm not going to lie, intimidate me a bit, especially the Asian cuisine. I guess that's part of the adventure and it wouldn't be a challenge if it wasn't easy.
11 down, 90 to go!
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