Month o' Pies, Week 5: Mince Pie

O ho! I have returned to bring you the fifth and final December pie. Never mind that I'm posting it in May; I have backdated this entry to appear as though I stuck with the program. Muahaha. I actually did make the pie on time, yes precious. For New Years! And I haven't blogged since then because this had to be posted first, and it was a bit of a daunting task.

This really is one of my favorite pies, although many people claim not to like mince pie. I think the offending factor might be the slight bitterness in the citrus peels combined with the heavy spices, which themselves are ever so teensily bitter. I like it because it's strong and warm-tasting, and not sickly sweet. The flavors have balance. Sometimes you need a little bitterness to drive the cold winter away. Plus, you can always add a little freshly whipped cream.

On a different note, do you have any idea how impossible it is to find organic candied orange peel? Seriously. It's completely impossible. So I have to make my own, which is kind of tedious but not actually that difficult. If you don't care if your orange peel contains the pesticides of centuries under all that sugar and that its production contributed rather heavily to toxic runoff into streams, it's much easier to just buy a container of candied orange peel. But just in case you want to make your own, here's how.


CANDIED ORANGE PEEL

3 orange peels, quartered and pith scraped out a bit
2 cups sugar
2/3 cup water
sugar for rolling

1. Start by blanching your peels. This takes out a good deal of bitterness from the pith, and softens the peels for candying. Cover the peels with water in a saucepan and bring to a boil. Boil 5 minutes, then drain. Cover with water again. Bring to a boil and cook for 5 more minutes, then drain again. Do this one more time. Then you'll have a pan of blanched peels.

2. When the peels have drained, and cooled a little, cut them into 1/4 to 1/2-inch wide strips. You can set them aside for a few minutes.



3. Add the sugar and water to your saucepan and heat until it boils and comes to 230°F on a candy thermometer. If you don't have one of those, you'll just have to wing it.



It should get very bubbly, and be careful - it's much hotter than boiling water and will stick to you, so try not to splash around in it unless you want severe burns.



4. Add the orange peels and reduce the heat just a little so that it continues to simmer but isn't so angry about it. You want to maintain the heat, but not cook down the syrup so much that it doesn't cover the peels anymore.



Aim for 30-40 minutes of simmering, and check it frequently to make sure the peels are still covered. When they're done, they'll look slightly translucent.



5. One by one, remove the peel pieces using tongs and toss them into some granulated sugar and roll to coat. You can then put them on a cooling rack covered by a piece of parchment paper and simply wait for them to cool. Neat, huh?

So that's how you make candied orange peel. You'll need it - but not all of it - to make a good mince pie.

Oh, did I mention that mince pie (mincemeat pie) used to be made with meat that had gone off, and is heavily spiced to cover up the bad taste? That's pre-refrigeration for you. Later (and now) it's not made with bad meat - or good meat, for that matter - but instead with beef suet. Beef suet is not a delicacy in which I partake, so I find that using butter makes for an awfully good non-beefy mince pie that instead features the flavors of fall fruits. Thank you, Cook's Illustrated.

I should also note that this pie can take the better part of a day to make if you're not prepared. If you have done it before and/or know what you're in for, you can crank it out in about 4 and a half hours.


MINCE PIE

Crust (I found a winner!)
2 1/2 cups flour
1 tsp salt
1 tbsp sugar
10 tbsp shortening
1/4 cup cold unsalted butter, cut into cubes
6-8 tbsp ice water

Filling
3 lbs flavorful, local, in-season apples (at least a few Grannies in the mix makes it interesting)
1 cup golden raisins
1 cup currants
zest and juice from 1 orange and 1 lemon
1/4 cup diced candied orange peel
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp allspice
1/2 tsp ginger
1/4 tsp cloves
1/4 tsp salt
1 stick unsalted butter
1 1/2 cups (maybe more) fresh, local apple cider (this is important! If you're in the Seattle area, I recommend Minea Farm in Woodinville for this one)
1/3 cup brandy

1. For the crust, mix the flour with the salt and sugar as well as you can. Cut in the shortening until it's pretty well mixed but a little sandy-looking. Then cut in the butter until it is almost as mixed as the shortening, but with a few pieces here and there. Add the water (try just 6 tbsp at first) and fold it all together until you can make it adhere to itself. Divide in two pieces, wrap them up, and refrigerate until you need them. You can also save this step for when the mince filling is cooking.

2. Peel, core, and dice your apples. By hand, this takes forever. And I'm not gonna lie, my grandma sent me a peeler-corer-slicer and I FREAKING LOVE IT. What usually takes me at least half an hour took me about five minutes.

It cored, peeled, and spiral-cut all the apples in less than five minutes.



All I had to do was trim the peel bit at the end (maybe eat it) and add cross-cuts to dice them, which also took less than five minutes. You want about 1/4-inch pieces. Chuck them in a large stockpot.



3. Add to the aforementioned stockpot the raisins and currants, citrus zests, juices and peel, brown sugar, spices, butter, and a cup of the cider. Toss it a little to combine.



4. Heat this pot over medium-low until it starts to simmer. It will take awhile, but that's OK. The first time I made this pie, I got too excited and burned it in my attempts to simply make it simmer faster. Don't do that. Actually, you don't have to do much of anything at this point, except let it simmer. For like, three hours. It will let out liquid.



Stir it a bit every so often so it doesn't scorch. Just make sure it's on the lowest heat that will allow it to continue simmering. You don't want to over-stir, either. I did that the second time I made this pie and it turned into a spicy jam pie. Not nearly as exciting.

5. Over time, it should gradually darken and smell absolutely divine.



The lighter bits are the pieces of Granny Smith, and the translucent bits are the pieces of other apple kinds. That's why it's nice to have a mix of apples; you also get a mix of textures and some independence of flavors. But not necessary, if all you have is a bunch of Pippins or Galas or something, you should be ok. Just keep simmering. It's a good time to make the crust, this three hours. You don't have to do it beforehand.

6. If you really need to, as it's cooking down ever so slowly, you can add a touch more cider. But only if it's threatening to scorch and is all dried up, which it shouldn't be at the proper heat. It should be gradually getting slightly viscous with just the smidgeniest bit of apple-butterness to it. After three hours it should look roughly like this.



At this point you should stir every few minutes. No more than three minutes in between, but don't stir it constantly, either. Cook like that for 20 minutes, and take out that pie dough from the refrigerator.

7. Now you can stir in the last half cup of cider, and the brandy. Now it really smells good. Cook that down just ten more minutes, and preheat the oven to 400°F.



8. So. That crust you have that's been refrigerated. Roll half of it out to a 12-inch circle and put it in a 9-inch pie pan, and put all the mince filling into it. Trim the edge to about half an inch beyond the lip of the pie pan.



9. Take the other crust half, roll it out to a 12-inch circle, and use a crimped-edge pastry roller to cut ten evenly-spaced strips in it.



10. Using all the cleverness at your disposal, lay the strips on the pie - five going one way, five perpendicular to that - and weave them. It's really not that difficult. Lay down all the ones going in one direction first. Then, as you lay down the other direction, just lift up the ones you need to lift to get the dough underneath and in a weave pattern. You can figure it out. Trim any overhang to match the lower crust.



11. Although you may have used up your cleverness, hopefully you still have some skill left in your fingers to crimp the edge as nicely as I did.



Bake that pie in the lower third of the oven for 45 minutes. If your oven runs hot on one side, rotate the pie halfway through baking. It doesn't hurt to cover the edges of the crust with foil at that point, too. They like to burn, as evidenced by my final product.



Regardless, this mince pie was really good.

And THAT concludes pie month.