A recipe for perfect pie crust

Am I cheating by starting this missive that's allegedly about just pie crust with a picture of a full blown pie? I might be. But you'll have to excuse that skirting of the rules because as we know a pie crust is a vessel for something else, it does not stand alone, and also, it's not very interesting to look at even when done professionally.

The pie dough recipe my mother has used for years was passed down to her from her grandmother on her mother's side, who was by all accounts a fantastic cook. Her holiday cookie recipes will soon be featured here if I get my shit together, which I must, because it's that time of year and nothing says Christmas like [REDACTED UNTIL THE HOLIDAY IS UPON US]. Her pie dough recipe was always THE pie dough recipe, accept no substitutes. But that doesn't mean that it seemed easy. I mean absolutely nothing shady when I say that watching my mother roll out the dough for the three pies my family makes each Thanksgiving—Pumpkin, Pecan, and Apple, accept no substitutes—always seemed a bit stressful. There was a lot of sighing (which, to be fair, my mother loves to do and I think is mostly just a reminder to herself to breathe, and if we're really being honest here is a habit I am fairly concerned I have picked up myself) and carefully crimping the edges and patching places up. Pie dough is hard! Or so we have been taught.

But perhaps that is all mere hype from Big Pie to get us to buy and not make. (Sidebar: if you're in the market for a pie and you live in or near New York City, I would recommend the apple sour cream from Little Pie Company.) When I went to check to make sure I had the ingredients for pie crust (under "Techniques & Tips" in Fave Recipes, a section that comes with the caveat "None of these recipes are original; a recipe is a work in progress and eating is a matter of taste."), a few minor surprises hit. One was that there is no lard in this recipe, which was always what I recalled was special about it and gave it that particularly toothsome feel. Once I checked with my mother, she clarified that this recipe has always called for vegetable shortening but that my father had probably done a lot of waxing rhapsodic about lard and trying to convince her to buy it, though she could only ever find it at the local C-Town. Indeed, Lard is hard to buy in "the North," though I do currently have some in my freezer that I purchased in "the South." Aside from reasons of cultural norms, people, still barely over the 1990s, are weird about lard—and also some are vegetarians! In any case, even the vegetable shortening, aka Crisco, was very hard to find at the store. I wandered aimlessly around the admittedly poorly organized but has a huge cheese and meat selection grocery store by my gym for about 10 minutes looking for the tell-tale Crisco label until I found vegetable shortening in the oils aisle.

Once I returned home, the work was quite simple. I actually threw most of it together one-handed while on the phone, which is not a technique I would recommend but did the job. Then it rested for 30 minutes in the fridge while I started roasting the squash that, oh yes, as I have not revealed it yet, would be filling the crust. There's no need to go into that too much, but suffice it to say that a slightly-more-than-slightly stressful situation with my CSA means that I have a zillion dollars of vegetable credits to use this month and was literally rolling in butternut squash last week, hence the impetus for this pie. Two of them (I still have one left, alas, my life) were peeled and cut and deseeded and then roasted in the oven for about 40 minutes on high and then that mass was smashed into a rough puree and then THAT was food processed with the rest of the pie ingredients.

But before we got there, I had to roll out the pie crust, the part of this process that becomes even more stressful when you realize it's 7 pm on a Sunday, you thought you'd be done with this pie in the afternoon, you haven't figured out what you're making for dinner after all this is over, and there's something boring but you'd still like to hear what it is is happening with Elizabeth on The Crown. When I'd put the round of pie crust in the fridge, I was concerned it was too damp, but it ended up being fine; with some heavy flouring and the absolutely gigantic rolling pin that my living companion bought as a "joke" (who's laughing, because it's not me) I found the crust rolled out pretty easily. Then you fold it up and unfold it again like some package that will be tasty in the future and that's where the real work is done, tweaking and shifting and crimping until you get something that looks like this.

Some of the ease might just have been how many times I've watched my mother do this, but I must admit that given that my responsibility in my family has always been to handle only the fillings, I was concerned that I wouldn't be able to execute when given the chance. But this looked perfectly fine, and I did what cooking show hosts do and "popped" it into the fridge to chill again while I completed the above mix steps.

The recipe I used for butternut squash pie is this one from our trusty standby The New York Times. I absolutely did not make the candied squash and ginger relish to go on top, I did not have ginger so I replaced it with cloves, and I also found that my skepticism of the blind bake they suggest was warranted; I've never had a pie suffer from the soggy bottom, and I wish I'd gone with my instinct and not baked the crust ahead of time, as the final result seems almost TOO flakey. (The recipe also recommends using a pizza stone to prevent the same ailment, which, seriously, what are we made of, both endless time and money?!)

All in all, I must admit that once my pie was finally done I was a little too exhausted to really enjoy it. The crust was better than the one I made for a slightly below expected delivery standards galette a few weeks back, though the "it's good, not incredible" taste of that particular venture I blame more on them apples, which were very delicious, but probably not tart enough.

All in all, I gained newfound respect for myself this November afternoon, about the bare minimum we can really hope for in life. That said, I am facing my first Thanksgiving without Libby's canned pumpkin, and it remains to be seen whether this fully from-scratch situation has acted as a solid substitute. Some classics are not meant to be tweaked with.

KATE

P.S. Some really stupendous responses to my last missive about tuna and olive tapenade, both sweet and worrisome. In the sweet category, my grandmother revealed that my dad gave her the recipe years ago and she's made it many times, which, if you've attended one of her Christmas parties, is a huge compliment (she also uses Kalamata olives like I do, yet another sign I am Doing The Right Thing). In the worrisome category, Caity shared an upsetting thing for her to only just now be realizing, though I agree with the latter part of the sentiment:

Here's something I just learned that's a real bummer: raw chicken doesn't last for a week in the fridge (allegedly?)? Why do we even have refrigerators if they can't keep something good for a week?

For Caity: at least we are not still living with literal ice boxes; much respect to John Gorrie, the father of modern refrigeration and air conditioning. If you are ever in Apalachicola, Florida, please visit the museum dedicated to him and by visit I mean walk by if you are truly bored with having a great time sitting at the beach and eating oysters.

And from Ellie, not upsetting, just a query:

what are your thoughts on canned tuna

My answer? Bumble Bee in water is the old standby, preferably with some mayo and celery seed. The perfect at-home lunch. Another Fave Recipe, though this one has, until now, never been written down. Lucky you.