Month o' Pies, Week 1: Lime'on Meringue Pie

Sometime in between having an unnaturally intense craving for lemon meringue pie, procuring nearly 10lbs more of free, organic, blemished apples, becoming ecstatic at finding a Kabocha squash at Whole Foods, and feeling the pull of my family's holiday tradition of making mince pie, it occurred to me that there was something I could do.

Make pies. Lots of them. I will make a pie a week this month. I will fill December with pie.

My plan is this. To satisfy my most immediate of cravings, I shall make the lemon meringue pie. Since it will be the furthest pie from Christmas, I do not feel too bad that it doesn't contain any traditional holiday charm. Then, in a yet undetermined order, I will make apple pie, pumpkin pie (enter the Kabocha squash - it performs like pumpkin, but... better), mince pie (minus the rotting meat, if you please, I prefer my mince pie to be on the fruity side), and - but wait, there are 5 pie-making opportunities in December.

!!!

The last one is TBD. So far I'm leaning toward something of a pecan-cranberry. My requirements are that it has to be of-the-holidays, and completely different from all the other pies I'm making.

We'll see how things go.

So, while I'm sitting here, blogging, I might as well talk about the pie I made this week. I had the most unfavorable realization during my grocery shopping that there are no organic lemons to be found in any one of four Whole Foods, two Trader Joe's, or even a Fry's. Since my recipe (and any good lemon meringue pie recipe) calls for lemon zest, conventional lemons of indeterminate origin are a deal-breaker. Why yes, I will have an extra helping of those oil-soluble pesticides.

But it's like I always say, when life doesn't give you lemons, make your pie with limes.

For one reason or another, organic limes are not difficult to find right now, and I happened to have some in my very own refrigerator. I was afraid, however, that by using juice and zest from exclusively limes, I would never be able to really satisfy my craving for lemon meringue pie. Enter my lovely Lakewood lemon juice from a bottle. Don't cringe, snobbish foodie, good lemon juice from a bottle will not make your pie taste bad. Nor will it mine, for that matter.

Lime'on meringue pie was born.


LIME'ON MERINGUE PIE
thanks (mostly) be to Cook's Illustrated

Crust
1 1/4 cups flour
1/2 tsp salt
1 tbsp sugar
3 tbsp cold shortening (I use Jungle Shortening, which is an organic blend of sunflower oil and sustainably produced palm oil)
4 tbsp cold butter cut into bits
5 tbsp cold water
2-3 graham crackers, all crushed up

Lime'on Custard
1 1/2 cups cold water
1 cup sugar
1/4 cup cornstarch
pinch o' sea salt
6 egg yolks
1 tbsp lime zest
1/2 cup lemon juice
2 tbsp buttah

Meringue
1/3 cup water
1 tbsp cornstarch
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 tsp cream of tartar
4 egg whites
1/2 tsp vanilla

Crust
1. Start this pie by making the crust. It has to be prebaked because of the liquidity of the filling, and the fact that it takes longer to bake than meringue. Now. Whisk up the dry ingredients (flour, sugar, salt) in a bowl, then cut in the shortening with a fork or pastry blender. Mix it pretty well, it shouldn't be chunky at all.

2. Cut in the butter. Make sure it's cut up in small pieces before you start, or you'll have terribly overworked pie dough by the time you're done.



Mix it in until it's crumbly. Not chunky, and not sandy, but crumbly. You'll know.



3. Drizzle the water all over the top, and mix it quickly with a spatula. Folding it is best, as you don't want to stir it too much or it'll be tough. Just keep mixing it until it starts to stick together. You can use your hands a bit. Give it a squeeze. Don't use your hands too much, or the butter will melt and that just sucks. When you can make a shaggy/flaky looking lump, it's good to chill. Keep it covered in the fridge for an hour.



4. After it's thoroughly cold, you can roll it out. Here's where this pie crust becomes special. Instead of dusting the counter with flour, you need some of this.



How much you use really depends on you. I used two normal-sized graham crackers and got the right amount, but I suppose I could have used more.

Anyway, put some graham cracker crumbs on the counter, with the dough on top, and some more crumbs on that, and start rolling.



Roll it until it's a big circle, about a foot in diameter. Whenever it threatens stickage, add more graham cracker crumbs. If you can, make the circle relatively even, unlike mine, because it's much easier to fit into a pan and trim.



It should look like a big piece of pie dough with a bunch of graham cracker crumbs forced into it.

5. The easiest way to get this into a pie dish (for me, at least) is to fold it in half, and then in half again, and pick it up carefully and quickly and put it in the pan. I've tried the whole "roll it on the rolling pin" thing, and it always ends badly. Either way, you should end up with this (in a 9" pie dish, by the way):



There should be some overhang. Just trim where it's long and supplement where it's short, and tuck it under all the way around, so the folded edge is flush with the pie plate edge.



Then, using all the skill you can muster, flute the edge (that means crimp it). You can either do what I did and make waves with your fingertips, or press down with a fork all along the edge, or make a neat circle of thumbprints, or leave it plain. I do what my mom taught me.



6. Here comes the frustrating part. You have to chill the damn dough again. For 40 minutes. And then 20 in the freezer (next time, I'm using my mom's recipe, with no chilling required). 10-15 minutes before you take it out of the freezer, preheat your oven to 375°F.

When the extremely cold pie dish comes out of the freezer, cover it double with foil (stagger the corners for maximum coverage) and put in two cups of pie weights. I only had one cup of pie weights, so I used some really old dried cannellini beans to supplement. The weights help keep the crust from shrinking too much, or puffing on the bottom. The foil keeps it from getting burnt on the surface.



Bake it for half an hour, then remove the foil with the weights inside. Leave the crust in for 12 minutes more to finish cooking and brown.



It was around this point that I realized that in my adding a lot of cannellini beans to my pie weights, they had mingled amongst themselves and I now had to fish out all my individual pie weights to put them back in their little jar. Whatever. Next time I'm just getting more pie weights.

Oh, and my crust still shrunk. :( Not the end of the world, but it always makes me sad, and it always shrinks. Maybe it's the pie weight insufficiency.

So anyway, that's how you make the crust. Set it on a wire rack to cool all the way. It doesn't really take all that long.

Lime'on Custard
1. When the crust is cooled, or nearly so, start on this. Whisk the water with the sugar and cornstarch and salt in a saucepan, and put it over medium heat. It should look cloudy-white.



It is of the utmost importance that you get all your ducks in a row, like, right now. Arrange your ingredients as follows, from closest to the saucepan to furthest from: egg yolks, lime zest, lemon juice, and butter.



2. Whisk your saucepan's contents every so often as it heats up. When it starts forming weird clear spots and starts simmering, whisk a lot. It should have gotten more clear overall.



While whisking, slip in the egg yolks, two at a time. Whisk fast, because you don't want the yolks to cook before they're evenly distributed. Keep whisking.

Add the zest. Whisk. Add the juice. Whisk. Add the butter. Whisk until it melts and then comes to a hearty simmer. Keep whisking.



And then take it off the heat and cover it with parchment. Some would say plastic wrap, but to them I reply, "I do not someday want mutant babies." The idea is merely to prevent a top skin from forming, and to keep the whole thing very warm.



Woah, surprise! Your filling is done.

Meringue
1. My favorite part! Egg whites beaten into complete and utter submission. Start virtually the same as last time, but just mix the water and cornstarch in a teeny saucepan over medium-low heat and keep whisking until it gets all thick and goopy. Then you can set it aside.

Then set aside a small bowl with the sugar and cream of tartar mixed together. Preheat the oven to 325°F.

2. The star of the show, of course, are un-blemished, un-tainted, un-impressive egg whites. It all begins with a bowl (copper is amazing for beating whites, but any metal bowl is good, glass will do in a pinch, but for the love of cheese do not use plastic). Put the whites and vanilla in it.



I don't recommend attempting this by hand. I've done it only once, with help, and it was not fun. Fortunately I have an electric hand-mixer with a whisk attachment. Really, any electric mixer will do. On low speed, mix up the egg whites and vanilla until it gets frothy and the egg whites are no longer... you know... mucousy.



3. Little by little, add the sugar mix to the egg whites while beating it up. Keep the speed low, you really don't want to rush it. By the time you're done adding, you should be at the soft-peak stage or nearly there. If you're not there yet, keep beating until you get there.

"Soft peaks" is when you lift out the whisk and the egg white holds its shape, for the most part, but droops over at the point. It looks like a Santa hat.



4. Now it's time to add the gloopy cornstarch mix. Again - little by little. Keep beating in between. In the meantime, take the parchment off of the lime'on pan and return it to low heat to ensure its hotness.

By the end of the cornstarch-gloop-adding, you should be nearly at stiff peaks. If you're not there, get there. Be very careful, and check every 5 seconds or so when you're getting close. If you go too far, something happens to the egg whites and they just... dry up and collapse (much like we all will do, some day). There's no saving them then, so don't get there. Stop beating when you get to stiff peaks. It is much like soft peaks, but the point does not droop. It looks like a witch's hat.





5. So now, you can put your pie together! Pour all the lime'on filling into the cooled crust, as shown.



Then, carefully, put the meringue atop. Go around the edges first, and adhere the meringue to the crust in all places. This ensures two things. 1: the filling cannot escape between the meringue and the crust, and 2: the meringue will not shrink away from the crust in the oven.

Then pile the rest of it in the middle and smooth it all around. Yes, there's a lot.

Oh! And then take a spoon or something and make it stick up all over the place. Then it'll have peaks, and they'll brown.



6. Pop it in the oven for 20 minutes. Take it out to cool on a wire rack, and do not cut until it's completely cool. This takes practically forever. I had to go to bed and have it for breakfast, it took so long.

But then you can cut it, and eat it, and be smug that you have pie when others do not.

And that, friends, is lime'on meringue pie done right.