Happy Thanksgiving!
This holiday has never been my favorite, but after spending last year’s in Croatia (which was really meaningful), there’s a newfound comfort in getting to be with family this year. There’s something exciting about meat and potatoes this time around that I’ve never really felt before. Funny how circumstances can change your perspective.
We celebrated with Tim’s immediate family a couple of weekends ago and had all the classics – turkey, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, and pumpkin pie – as well as some delicious additions – butternut squash, sweet potatoes, and rolls (made by your’s truly 😉).
The more rosemary the better!
On Saturday, we’ll be at Tim’s extended family’s for more classics – but maybe there’ll be apple pie there since I’m not a fan of the pumpkin. And we’ll go down the street to my immediate family’s on Sunday – Dad’s smoking a brisket!!
Today, though, we’re just chilling. It’s a real holiday this year. No work! I’m even almost caught up on my GBBO bake-along, which is the real reason for this post. 😄 In the spirit of the holiday’s pie-mary dish (can you tell I’m spending too much time with Tim 😆), I’m going to skip Week 4: Chocolate Week, and feature…
Week 5: Pastry Week
As we wrapped up our time in Utah, Matthew and April had obligations out of town, so I took the opportunity to construct a savory pie. I’m not super confident in my pastry baking skills (making the pastry dough is no sweat, though), so it wasn’t something I wanted to serve to anyone besides Tim in case it was undercooked or took ages in the oven. I also didn’t know how they’d feel about meat in a pie since it didn’t seem like a dish they’d be used to.
Tim, however, is always game for something new.
Because it’s fall, I gravitated toward butternut squash, a favorite ingredient of mine, and chose these chorizo, pumpkin, and caramelized onion hand-pies. Since this is a recipe from the UK, the first hurdle was realizing that “pumpkin” referred to butternut squash. Americans are very specific when naming their squashes, but apparently not across the pond – “butternut pumpkin” was the phrase of choice, here.
The other difference was a post-bake realization that in the UK, they probably used Spanish chorizo, which is smoked, rather than the Mexican chorizo we have here, which is more like ground pork. The flavors may be similar, but the texture is not. So, there was a lot more moisture than what was intended, and I worried about ending up with a soggy bottom.
Since my filling was altered by circumstance, I opted to alter the finished product as well. Instead of making hand pies, I made one big pie in the cast iron skillet, which ended up being an excellent choice. The cast iron gets hot and stays hot, which helps moisture to bake off and the crust to crisp up.
profailantism (n): the art of embracing failure and using it as motivational fuel to ultimately succeed and achieve your goals
Besides the unique filling, I chose this pie for my bake-along because it uses hot-water pastry, something I’ve never made before. And Bake Off is the perfect opportunity to try new things!
Mixing the dough was easy and straightforward – you bring water and butter to a boil and then remove from heat to stir in the flour and salt. The trick then is to know when to roll out the dough – too soon and the hot dough is too malleable but too late and the dough is no longer warm. The heat in hot-water pastry helps the crust stabilize. It also traps more moisture inside the pie, rather than seeping into the crust as would happen with shortcrust.
Wouldn’t you know it, trapped moisture and a more flexible dough (that didn’t tear when rolled thin) ensured that this was my most successful pastry bake EVER! None of the crust came out raw, and I think I only added extra time once – can’t tell you how much, though, because that was weeks ago. 😂
The pastry was delicious and crispy, though not “flaky” like shortcrust would be. However, Tim and I weren’t too keen on the filling. And I think that came down to the difference in chorizo. The Mexican chorizo, since it was just a ton of ground spicy sausage, ended up being the dominant (or only) flavor, which was too much. I think the Spanish chorizo would make a much better pie, but I’m not sure where to get my hands on that here.
And, as with all pies, I had extra dough left over. A stroke of genius inspired me to cut it into bite-sized chunks and throw it in Matthew’s air-fryer. After about seven minutes, they were cooked through, and I tossed them in butter and cinnamon sugar for a tasty treat that we snacked on for the next few days.
All in all, it was a successful week!
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