Last weekend, I attended the 39th annual apple festival in Lafayette, NY. I know it’s not Jersey, but this girl grew up apple picking in upstate NY, and old habits die hard, so grant me a culinary pass(port).
If you want to do some local picking, read NJM’s U-Pick-Em report this month. Or check out this fab interactive map from the NJ Department of Agriculture, and see your tax dollars at work. Click on your county, and find yourself an apple farm!
I also competed in a pie-making contest for a new Yahoo show I’m hosting called Blue Ribbon Hunter . I won’t tell you if I won the contest or not (you’ll have to wait to Oct 31 when the show airs), but I will tell you that I now know a lot more about making a delicious apple pie than I did before I entered the contest. Here’s what I learned:
1. Cortland is the right apple for apple pie. I always made my pies and tarts with a combination of Golden Delicious and Macintosh, which combines tart and sweet, firmness (Golden) with a little sauciness (Mac). And boy did I get schooled by the women and men who’ve been making pies for decades. Round these parts, folks prefer their apples cooked, and by cooked they mean cooked to the point where the apples hold their shape when you slice the pie, but dissolve the moment they hit your mouth. They look solid, but it’s a mirage. Had I not eaten many many slices, I’m not sure I would have believed it makes that much of a difference. Everyone in Lafayette knows it; Cortland is the apple I will use in the future.
2. Use Crisco for your crust. When preparing my recipe, I consulted at least 2 dozen fancy cookbooks, and everyone seemed to agree that an all-butter crust is superior to a (insert arrogant chef eye roll here) Crisco crust. All my relatives told me to use Crisco, but since they didn’t go to culinary school, and have only been making pies for decades, I didn’t heed their wisdom.
The folly of my culinary arrogance! All-butter is wonderful if you’re making a croissant, or light, flaky puff pastry, but you’re never going to get the same snappy pie crust that you do when you use Crisco. One festival goer, a farmer, explained to me that butter melts at too low a temperature, so it can never do what Crisco can. Crisco makes a superior, blue-ribbon winning crust. If you like, try equal parts crisco and butter. But don’t act like you’re too good for Crisco; it borders on un-American.
3. Sugar your pie: And when I say sugar, I don’t just mean sprinkle a tablespoon of sugar on the top crust, I mean show it some love. For those who don’t want to fuss with pastry leaves or ornate decorations, a simple perforated design is a sweet way to go. Many apple pie contestants decorated their pies with stencils. They’d lay a cutout on top of the pie, of a tree, or an apple, or some such, and use a skewer to outline the shape and create the design. Of course before you make your design, be sure to paint that crust with a nice egg wash so that it gets golden brown, and yes, sprinkle granulated sugar on top as well.
So whether you take your pie with milk, a slice of cheddar cheese, or ice cream, be sure to make one this season. And if this pie crust thing has got you perplexed, ix-nay the uss-fay: use store bought frozen pie crusts. If you don’t tell, no one will ever know.
Apple Pie Filling:
3 pounds Cortland apples, cored, peeled and chopped into 1/2-inch thick pieces
1 tablespoon lemon juice
3/4 cup sugar, plus 1 tablespoon for garnish
2 tablespoons flour
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
In a large bowl, combine apples and lemon juice and toss. In a small bowl, combine sugar, flour, cinnamon and salt and mix together. Fill your pie crust, top with another crust, brush with egg wash, decorate, and sprinkle with sugar. Cook according to package directions.
Allison Fishman is the host of Yahoo’s Blue Ribbon Hunter and author of You Can Trust A Skinny Cook . For delicious humor & recipes, visit allisonfishman.com or follow @allisonfishman on Twitter.