Flakiest Baked Piecrust

Foolproof shortcrust every time for blind baking then filling or baking with fillings. This flakiest baked piecrust is perfect for savory or sweet pies.

This baked piecrust is for those pies with filling that doesn’t get baked. For instance, banana cream or chocolate pudding and the like.  It is light and flakey and identical to my regular piecrust, you just bake it empty or “blind” (with beans or pastry weights inside to keep it from puffing up) before adding the non-baked filling.

Or stop just before the "blind" bake and fill the crust with your filling of choice. (I'd like to recommend quiche for a savory option or pecan pie for a sweet one.)  Then bake according to recipe instructions. 

Ingredients
1 1/4 cups or 156g all-purpose flour
1⁄4 cup plus 2 tablespoons or a little shy of 70g shortening (I prefer Crisco, when I can get it.)
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 to 3 tablespoons cold water

 

Method

In medium bowl with fork, lightly stir together flour and salt.

With pastry blender, cut in shortening until mixture resembles coarse crumbs.

Sprinkle in cold water, a tablespoon at a time, mixing lightly with a fork after each addition until pastry just holds together.











With hands, shape pastry into a ball. Wrap it in cling film and refrigerate 30 minutes. While the dough is chilling, preheat your oven to 425°F or 220°C.



Pop your dough ball into one of these handy devices, with a generous sprinkling of flour or on lightly floured surface with lightly floured rolling pin, roll pastry into circle 1⁄8 inch thick and about 2 inches larger all around than pie plate.

My piecrust bag is 12 inches and perfect for a normal pie pan, but the smaller size seems hard to find these days.





Transfer to pie plate, easing into bottom and side of plate. Fold overhang under; pinch to form a decorative edge.











Prick bottom and side of crust all over with a fork, to prevent puffing during baking. Cut a circle of parchment paper to lay inside and fill with pie weights or dried beans.







Bake for 15 minutes or until golden in your preheated oven. Cool for a couple of minutes and then carefully remove the hot weights or beans and put them in a heat resistant bowl to cool. The beans can be saved in a Ziploc for future use as pie weights. Of course, the pie weights are reusable too.









Once cool, fill with the unbaked filling of your preference. In our family, we prefer banana cream.





Enjoy!

Easy Black Beans with Smoked Sausage

A traditional meal in the Carioca, that is to say Rio de Janeiro - area of Brazil, black beans with smoked sausage and rice is a tasty staple that will fill you up and bring you comfort.

Moving on is about discovering new places and making new friends. But it is also about finding homes in your new house for memorabilia and treasures from past lives. I have always told my girls that home is where we are together. But, for me, home is also where the special things are.

My mother and my mother-in-law are both collectors of treasure. I saw their houses from a young age (yes, I was friends with my mother-in-law before I started dating her son) and, while the things they had amassed were beautiful, I vowed quietly to myself that I would be more cautious. I would choose a piece or two from each place we lived and make that piece count. I don’t mean to imply that all of their things weren’t special, just that I was looking for a simpler, less cluttered life.

Our first overseas move was Singapore but we didn’t get a shipment and, frankly, we had all kinds of furniture already from the Far East since dear husband came to the relationship with Korean hibachi tables and Chinese cabinets with tiny drawers, a carved wooden Indian room divider screen and even a big Chinese gong.

Our second posting was Sydney and we bought one item: an antique over-mantel piece with a small stained glass cabinet. It cost as much to ship back to the US as it did to buy it. Worth ever penny.

Our purchases in the next location, Abu Dhabi, were primarily Persian carpets. The first was a 3ft x 5ft Tabriz that cost us US$800. A fortune in those days, the last of the ‘80s, for two kids just out of university a few years. The carpet had an identical twin, very unusual, and it is one of our regrets that we didn’t buy them both. But, Lordy, $800 for one! Two was unthinkable! We still kick ourselves over that decision, almost 30 years on.

We moved around for the next few years, judicially, carefully, adding “recuerdos” to our collection. An antique Dutch clock in Balikpapan, Indonesia and a small elegant chandelier from the Marché aux Puces in Paris. Then for five and a half years we called Brazil home.

Early on, I saw a dish I wanted, coveted in Biblical proportions. I confess that sin. Although I guess, technically, it did not belong to my neighbor. Instead, it was at a pottery shop, an hour or two from my house, en route elsewhere, so I wasn’t tortured unduly.

This dish was large! Almost 24 inches from end to end, in a big, brightly colored, hand-painted oval design of peaceful blues and greens. Boy, did I want it. But we all have limits on what we will pay for something. This dish, more that 20 years ago, was beyond my comfort zone at US$100, especially for something decorative, because I could not imagine ever baking anything in a dish so large and pretty. 

So I went back occasionally to visit it and lusted. Through those years, and the magic of devaluation the real fell to almost 50 percent of its initial inflated value and, just before we moved from Brazil, the dish was mine. It has had pride of place in our living room since then.

Until now.

The movers in Kuala Lumpur were simply not careful enough in packing this up for our move to Egypt.

When my heart is heavy, I cook. The only meal appropriate after the discovery of the devastation was black beans with sausage and rice. I had to celebrate Brazil and bring back a happy memory because this one was so painful. Yes, I know it was only a thing, but it represented so much more. A wish fulfilled, a country missed.

Easy Black Beans with Smoked Sausage

In Brazil, beans and rice accompany almost any other dish that might be served. Lasagna for dinner, also beans and rice. Fried chicken, beans and rice on the side. Grilled meats, bring on the beans. We found it most extraordinary when we arrived, but we came to realize that unless there were beans and rice to fill you up, it just wasn't really considered a complete meal there. 

Ingredients
16 oz bag or a little less than 1/2 kilo dried black beans (If your bag is 500g, not problem, just hum the whole thing in.)
At least 14 oz or 400g smoked sausage (More is more in this case!)
4-5 cloves of garlic
2 bay leaves
Sea salt
Black pepper
Cayenne pepper
14 oz or 398g can cooked black beans

To serve: White rice cooked following package instructions or your favorite method.

Method
Pick carefully through the dried black beans removing any stones or clumps of dirt. Even the best brands have them, so do not skip this step.  Best case scenario if you miss a clump, is gritty beans. Worst case scenario if you miss a stone is a trip to the dentist with a broken tooth.

All the stones and clumps I found, with one bean for comparison.

Rinse the beans with some warm water and drain.

Slice the sausage into 1cm or 1/2 inch rounds.

Add the beans, garlic, bay leaves and sausage to your pressure cooker.

Eye the pot and add twice as much cold water as you have beans. Add about a teaspoon of salt and a good sprinkle of both peppers. Some smoked sausages are saltier than others so we don’t want to add too much actual salt right at the beginning.

N.B. If you are watching your salt intake, wait till the beans are cooked to add the salt. For those who don't use much salt, the seasonings from the sausage may be enough for you.

Put the lid on the pressure cooker and heat on high until it starts to make that loud ch-ch-ch noise that means it is boiling and under pressure. Turn the heat down till the ch-ch is just a gentle chug of a slow train.

Cook like this for about 35-40 minutes and then remove the pressure cooker from the heat. Allow it to cool until it is safe to open. Give the beans a good stir.

Put the pressure cooker back on the stove on a medium heat, without the lid, and cook to reduce the liquid by one or two inches or two to four centimeters and to finish cooking the beans.

Meanwhile, rinse the canned beans in some cool water and mash them completely with a potato masher. (You could also choose to cook a few more ounces or grams of beans and scoop the extra out with a slotted spoon and mash them. I find this easier because one whole bag plus one whole can makes the perfect thickness for me.)

Add them into the pressure cooker and stir vigorously to incorporate them. This will thicken the bean mixture.

Check the seasonings and add more salt and pepper if necessary. Serve over white rice with hot sauce on the side for those who want some extra spice.

Enjoy!

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Speedy Salmon Tikka with Cucumber Raita

We were blessed in the last two locations to have our daughters attend two of the best schools in Southeast Asia.  Both ISKL – the International School of Kuala Lumpur - and SAS – Singapore American School – are part of an intercollegiate league called IASAS.  This dish brings back happy memories of hosting IASAS friends and players when we were living in Singapore.  It’s quick and so delicious.  I think the last time I served it was for a softball/baseball exchange or perhaps even tournament and we had a house full up to the rafters.  Along with a bunch of girls from JIS in Jakarta (one of them a former ISKL student whose mother also stayed with us), we had one ISKL team member’s mother, father and sister staying with us too.  So many people to feed and I was in my element.  But after working all day at the SAS Booster Hut, selling food and spirit wear with my fellow Booster Club moms, I couldn’t have a complicated meal waiting to be prepared at home.  This quick salmon tikka, adapted from Jamie Oliver’s Ministry of Food, was perfect.  

I made it again last night, but with homemade naan. You can find that recipe and those instructions here.  It was just as tasty as I remembered.

Ingredients

4 small naan breads or two big ones cut in half

For the raita:
4 medium cucumbers

1 fresh chili pepper

1 thick green onion

1 lime

2-3 heaped tablespoons natural plain yoghurt

Sea salt

Black pepper

1 teaspoon ground cumin

Cayenne pepper (optional)

Small bunch of cilantro or fresh coriander

For the salmon:
2 salmon fillets – about 90-100g or oz each

1 heaped tablespoon curry paste – almost any one will do.

Olive oil

In these amounts, you can feed two.  Multiply this as many times as is necessary for your crowd.

Method
Preheat your oven to 110°C or 225°F. 

Pop your naan into the oven to warm through.  Or, if you have time earlier in the day, make them fresh yourself.  It’s easy and homemade are so much tastier than the store bought. Again, complete instructions are right here.

First, the raita.  Halve your cucumber lengthways, and then halve it again.  Use a sharp knife to cut off the watery seedy part.  Chop the cucumber diagonally into about 1/2 inch or 1cm pieces.  Put them in a bowl with room to stir.

My helper and I share the inside seedy bits.  One for him, one for me.  Until they are gone.

Then he loses interest in helping and I get this face.

Finely chop your chili, cilantro and green onion.   Add them to the cucumber bowl.

Halve your lime and squeeze the juice from one half into the bowl.

Add a good sprinkle of salt and pepper and the cumin.  Mix well.  Now add the yogurt.  Give it a taste and if you would like the raita spicier, add some cayenne pepper and add more salt, if necessary. 

Slice each salmon fillet across lengthways into four equal slices.  Thinner is easier to accomplish if the salmon is slightly frozen.  

Jamie’s original recipe calls for skin-on salmon.  I choose to take the skin off mine by slipping a sharp knife between the skin and the flesh (skin side down on the cutting board) because 1. I find it very difficult to cut through the skin, especially when I am trying to cut thin slices and 2.  I like to fry it up crispy, sprinkle it with sea salt and eat it just like that.  Delicious. 

Spoon the heaped tablespoon of curry paste into a small dish and loosen it with a little drizzle of olive oil.  

Use a pastry brush to spread the paste all over each piece.

One side

The other side

Heat a large non-stick frying pan over a high heat.  Once hot, put the salmon into the pan and cook for about 1½ minutes on each side, until cooked through.  

Serve on the warmed or fresh naan, topped with your cucumber raita and a squeeze of juice from the other half of the lime.   We folded ours up like tacos and ate them with relish.  Do lean over your plate though, because these can get drippy.  

Enjoy!