Lemon Pie no. 2: It's always time for lemon pie

I can't imagine needing two lemon pie recipes.

Lemon Pie #2 3 egg yolks Juice and rind of 1 lemon 3 tablespoons flour 1 cup sugar ½ teaspoon salt 1 cup boiling water 1 tablespoon butter 1 9-inch pie shell Heat oven to 350°. Bake the pie shell until slightly golden. Whip the egg yolks and lemon juice until very light, set aside. Sift together the flour, sugar, and salt into a saucepan. Whisk in boiling water until smooth. Add the lemon rind and stir over medium-high heat until it thickens and comes to a boil. Turn off the heat. Add the butter and the egg yolks, stirring until the butter melts. Pour into the pie shell and bake until set, about 25-30 minutes. If desired, top with meringue and return to the oven until lightly browned. I thought this was better with whipped cream instead. Serve at room temperature or refrigerated, depending on preference. Meringue: Beat 3 egg whites (which you saved from separating the egg yolks for the filling) with an electric mixer on high speed until stiff peaks form. Continue beating while gradually sprinkling in 5 tablespoons of sugar. Beat until the sugar is dissolved and everything is smooth and glossy. Spread on the pie, return to the oven, and bake until the meringue is lightly browned. Handwritten note, probably 1930s-1950s Notebook of Hannah D. O'Neil (née Hanora Frances Dannehy)

We may have found why my great-grandmother occasionally needed "a pleasant change from a piece of lemon meringue pie." I can't imagine making lemon pie so often that I needed a second recipe for it.

I was going to skip over this recipe. We already made a lemon pie from her book and liked a lot. Why would anyone need multiple lemon pies? But then again, I have multiple brownie recipes for different moods (the extra-rich brownies, the very sweet brownies, the quick and easy brownies, etc). With that in mind, if there is any real variation in lemon pies, I've never found it. They always taste like the recipe on the back of the cornstarch box, whether I make them myself or buy them at the fanciest bakeries my budget can forgive. This pie looked a bit different, which made me wonder: are there other lemon pies and I've been missing out all this time?

Furthermore, I can't imagine why someone would write down a second recipe for the same pie unless it was better than the first.

And lastly, my car battery died and I wanted to bake my way out of being despondent. I didn't mourn the car battery, but I was forced to confront the insane prices of car parts amidst a trade war and an actual war. (Nothing has trickled down to my neighborhood yet.) I wanted to make a pie for fun. Lemon pie it would therefore be. 

Three tablespoons of flour didn't seem like much until I got it into the sifter.

I hadn't made this pie yet, and I already liked it more than the one that shows up on the back of the cornstarch box. That one never seems to set unless I burn an offering to Fornax (the Roman goddess of hearth and oven), and even then I sometimes end up euphemistically calling it custard.This one uses a lot more to hold it together.

Let the record show that because we semi-always follow directions here at A Book of Cookrye, I did in fact get out the sifter for this. It seemed like more bother than I'd usually do for a lemon pie, but I'm not the one who wrote this down. 

As directed, I stirred in boiling water "until smooth," which was a lot easier than I expected. I thought I'd have to thrash this with a whisk, but we were done in a few seconds.

I did this in a separate bowl because I actually like my nonstick pot now.

The recipe doesn't mention using the lemon rind, but I think it really makes the flavor pop. I'm going to assume people would have done that instead of throwing out ingredients that were right on the countertop and waiting. Maybe cooks back then thought adding the rind was too obvious to write down, like "discard the eggshells."

This particular recipe calls for egg yolks "beaten light," which I've never seen in a lemon pie before. Usually you just put everything in the top of a double boiler and stir it for a minute or two. I put the whisk attachment into our mixer to see what the point of this might be. Seeing a single whisk (they were too cheap to put two in the box) hovering over the food made me think of when I replaced my broken handmixer with a power drill (which at the time led to several unsolicited and unculinary wall perforations).

I thought that one lemon wasn't enough for a whole pie, so I bought two. (Perhaps my great-grandmother meant a large lemon, rather than the smaller ones?) But a generously-dipped tasting spoon showed me that the first lemon was more than enough for the pie, so I put the other one away for future plans.

We are next told to add the butter and whipped egg yolks right to the pot. There's no mention of slowly spooning hot filling into the egg yolks until they're tempered. I was in a bit of a mood, so I decided to see if I really needed to bother with that. Maybe whipping them changes something and thus forestalls egg drop soup?

 

To my surprise, this actually worked. Nothing got scrambled, and we had a few swirls of foam that floated on top of the pot. I had thought they'd completely deflate and mix in. Perhaps this is like one of those sponge puddings that bake in layers? (Also, I really should have slipped in some artificial dye. This would have been really cute if it was pink.)

I decided not to make a meringue because they only last a day or so before deflating and dripping out those little brown beads. (Remember the rice pudding?) I do like a good meringue, but I also like desserts that last a bit.

However, this pie was incomplete without some sort of white fluff on top. I always thought people just did the meringue for presentation, but lemon pie is a lot better when dressed. So I gave it a dollop of whipped cream.

 

I didn't think a single lemon would be enough for a whole pie, but you'll notice that this is a relatively shallow pie so it all worked out. It was really good. More so than the other pie, this one tasted like fresh lemon. It's easy to make and hard to give away. If you don't want to make a whole pie of it, this would make really good lemon squares if you bake it on a shortbread cookie crust. Or, imagine it in a pavlova or a blitz forte.

Savory Baked Rice: or, I swear someone's aunt makes this

I've never tasted this before, but I would swear I have.

Savory Baked Rice ¾ cup raw rice 1½ cups water About ½ tsp salt 1 chopped onion (or about 4 oz frozen chopped onion*-- no need to defrost) 1 well-beaten egg 1½ cups milk Salt and pepper to taste Cook the rice, water, onion, and salt until done-- whether you use a rice cooker or a saucepan. If desired, add some extra seasonings before cooking-- I really liked it with a generous shake of dried parsley. While you're waiting on the rice, beat the egg until uniform. When the rice is done, heat oven to 350° (gas mark 4, 180°C). Grease a pie pan. Mix the milk with the rice-- this cools it off enough to prevent curdling the egg. Then add the egg and mix well. Add salt and pepper, and any other seasonings to taste. Bake 20 minutes. Serve warm. *There's no need to precisely weigh out the frozen onion. I just eyeballed about a third of a 12-oz package. "In the Kitchen," The Southern Districts Advocate; Katanning, Western Australia; August 21, 1933; page 1

The recipe ends with "Serve with mashed potatoes and tomato sauce." I don't know anything about the town of Katanning, but I did note that more than half the newspaper was concerned with livestock and crops. Carbs with a side of carbs makes more sense out in farm country. 

"In the Kitchen," The Southern Districts Advocate; Katanning, Western Australia; August 21, 1933

Today, we're starting with rice and a special other ingredient: an onion! I don't know why I never thought to add a chopped raw onion to the rice cooker before, but I'm definitely doing it again whether I revisit this recipe or not.

I also put generous shake of dried parsley in the rice water. I think dried parsley is very underrated in modern food. It makes things taste properly seasoned and adds such an interesting flavor. Parsley deserves to be more than decorative sprigs on the side of fancy plates.

Aside from waiting for the rice to cook, this recipe was surprisingly quick to put together. You just put it all in a bowl and stir. Though since I didn't want any stubborn clumps of egg that refused to beat out, I made a short detour and beat our egg electrically. I imagine that anyone doing this in the 1930s could have used a handcranked eggbeater and done it nearly as fast. 

The recipe says "more eggs can be added," but the price of eggs still hasn't quite recovered from the last time Trump was president. 

 After mixing, it looked (as all unbaked rice puddings seem to do) like soggy porridge.

Things were a lot better after baking. The rice came out of the oven ever-so-slightly golden on top and smelling amazing.

This was a lot better than it should have been. Seriously, this tastes like something that somebody's aunt always brings. I don't think anyone in my family has ever made anything like this, but I would swear it spontaneously generated on the Thanksgiving table at least once. And like all good recipes that someone's aunt brings, there were a lot of leftovers and we were glad to have them. 

 

Fresh Berry Whip: or, You probably shouldn't skimp on the title ingredient

Strawberries have been almost absurdly cheap. (Well, cheap by wartime prices.) Naturally, we bought a lot and forgot they have a shelf life of about two minutes. But because our refrigerator has been perhaps a bit too enthusiastic since its most recent repair, the strawberries didn't expire. They just shrivelled and looked like it. And as soon as I mashed them a bit with a spoon, they smelled deliciously like fresh strawberries.

Fresh Berry Whip 1½ cups raspberries or sliced strawberries (about 8oz or 225g) ⅓ cup sugar 2 tablespoons lemon juice (from a fresh lemon instead of a bottle if possible) 1 (&frac14oz) envelope unflavored gelatin, or 1 tablespoon gelatin powder ¼ cup cold water ¾ cup boiling water ⅛ teaspoon salt Red food coloring, if desired If you don't have an ice maker, place a large bowl of water in the refrigerator ahead of time to get very cold. Crush the berries slightly in a small bowl or large cup. Mix in the sugar and let stand 10 minutes. Then stir in lemon juice to taste. While the berries are standing and waiting, sprinkle the gelatin over the cold water in a small bowl, and let stand five minutes. Then add the boiling water and stir until dissolved. After ten minutes, force half of the berries through a sieve. Place the pulp in a measuring cup and add the syrup that came out of them as they soaked. Then add enough water to make ¾ cup. Pour into a medium-sized mixing bowl. Add the gelatin and salt to the sieved berries. Place the bowl in a large bowl of ice-cold water. Stir until it gets thick and syrupy. If desired, add red food coloring to make it a prettier shade of pink. (It'll be kind of pale-looking without it.) Then beat with an electric mixer (or a handcranked eggbeater) until it is whipped. Refrigerate until it is half-firm but not quite set, which may only take a few minutes. To check, sprinkle one or two of the remaining berries on top. They should stay on top instead of sinking to the bottom of the bowl. Then fold in the remaining berries. Refrigerate until firm. Turn into a serving bowl or pile in individual bowls. Garnish with whole or sliced berries, if desired. Will keep for a couple of nights in a sealed container. Serves 5. Good Desserts A-Plenty!, Minute Gelatin (General Foods Corporation), 1942-ish

I actually like when fruit goes slightly off in the fridge. I can't forgive myself for putting fresh and lovely fruit into a batch of muffins where it cannot be fully appreciated. But when the fruit is squishy or half-hardened, I'm no longer being extravagant when I cook it. Instead, I'm starving the garbage can.

We just happened to have the perfect recipe for the fruit in this tiny slip of a cookbook from the WWII rationing era. And I do mean a "tiny slip" of a booklet. It's only 2.5 by 5 inches of very small print (or about 65 by 130 millimeters for our metric friends). 

This stapled wallet-sized book is such a product of its time. First, the title "Good Desserts A-Plenty!" (with a jaunty exclamation mark) attempts to reassure you that you'll still have sweets amid food shortages. Second, it has little patriotic stars up and down each page. Third, it's printed as cheaply as possible. They didn't even cut the pages on the alignment marks; a lot of the text is ever-so-slightly crooked. 

The book has no date, but I'm going to guess that it's from right before rationing officially kicked in. I only say that because there's no cheery mention of stretching your "ration points."

Speaking of food shortages, we didn't have quite enough berries for this recipe. I think this is why our "fresh berry whip" ultimately didn't come out as good as it could have. But as I was measuring things, I decided that I was making a period-correct mistake. Also, I didn't want to buy more fruit just to pulverize and gelatinize it.

I was going to forcefully mash the berries through the sieve (I didn't see that they were supposed to be sliced until too late), but they put up a better fight than I anticipated. Fortunately, we recently got a new toy at a flea market:

I'm leaving the price tag on because I love how cheap this was.

I don't know if sugar was rationed when this book came out, but I think people were already cutting back regardless. It may look like we put a lot of sugar on the strawberries, but that's only because everything is confined into one small cup.

 

After ten minutes, the sugar had done its hygroscopic business on the strawberries and made an incredibly delicious syrup. If the rest of the recipe fails, you might want to stop here and spoon this into cute (and very small) bowls. To make it extra-fancy, you could add a drop of balsamic vinegar or a spoonful of wine.

We didn't get a lot of pulp out of our sieved strawberries, even though I managed to force everything through the mesh except a few stringy bits. This recipe may serve five, but it is not meant to serve five with leftovers.  

Interestingly, our cup of sieved strawberries stayed in layers. The syrup is on the bottom, then the strawberries in the middle, then the water we added floated over the rest.

I was surprised when our mixture whipped up as well as it did. And it stayed whipped instead of deflating as soon as I turned off the mixer. When I put the rest of the fruit on top, the foam held it up.

When I tried a spoonful, this tasted unexpectedly artificial-- and it wasn't the good kind of artificial flavoring. This tasted like the candy you throw away when you get home from trick-or-treating. To be fair, this recipe called for more fruit than we actually had threatening to go off, so I probably watered it more than I should have. Also, it probably would have been a lot better had I squeezed a fresh lemon instead of using the cheap bottled juice that's been in the fridge for a while. The recipe has promise, but I wasn't thrilled with what was about to congeal.

As I cleaned up, I had to finally acknowledge that our recipe used a lot of bowls. And with all our sieving and other fruit-related excitement, it made a splattery mess of the countertop. The impending crowded dishwasher and the rest of the mess had me muttering "this had better be worth it" as I waited for our fresh berry whip to refrigerate.

I can never decide if pink fluff looks cute and vintage, or if it looks like it came out of a medical textbook.

As aforementioned, I think I underserved this recipe by scrimping on fruit. Then again, I think that a lot of people back then probably did the same thing. (The shortages were real.) But with insufficient strawberries, this tasted like cheap fruit Jello. However, I imagine this would be a lot better if I actually used enough berries in it.

Also, don't go away thinking this looked normal. It wobbled unnervingly.

If strawberries remain cheap, I just might try this again with all the fruit it's entitled to (and with fresh lemon juice). It seems like it wants to be a very nice summery recipe, just the thing for when central AC hasn't yet made its way into homes. (Why do you think people kept going out to see cheesy matinee movies in the theater?) I also imagine this being really good on a summer picnic. But if you don't use enough fruit, it's just water and a third-cup of sugar.

Second-Stab Saturday: Mushrooms will never be fish

We got shiitake mushrooms with the most beautiful emblem on top!

Isn't that 50% off sticker a work of art? I've never had shiitake mushrooms before. I always got the impression that shiitakes were, like, designer mushrooms. Or at least, they're like designer mushrooms if most of the cars in your supermarket parking lot were purchased used.

When I got the shiitakes out of the box, they felt limper and spongier than the ones I usually get. They also looked stringier. I don't know if shiitakes are supposed to be like that, or if this is why they were half price. Either way, I decided to cook them before they had a chance to expire and then let them wait until I figured out what to make of them.

Obviously, I couldn't help tasting them right out of the frying pan to see if they're as magically special as their non-discount price suggests. And... they're more intense and savory than the cheaper mushrooms I've always gotten heretofore. They almost tasted like I'd added soy sauce. They didn't taste dramatically different, but they somehow were mushroomier.

This brings us to the recipe I used them in: Mrs. Mary Martensen's fish pie. Remember how I said "Imagine this with mushrooms"?

Mrs. Mary Martensen's Century of Progress Cook Book (recipes from The Chicago American), 1933

First, we had to make our lovely potato nest. 

I don't use the pressure cooker as much as I thought I would, but it's great for steaming potatoes-- especially when your recipe won't forgive them getting a little bit dried out as the microwave tends to do. This time, our rack tipped off its little improvised stand (an empty tomato paste can with both ends removed). Nevertheless, our spuds remained safely above the danger of getting sogged.

I know I said this last time, but I have to once again note that Mrs. Mary Martensen uses a lot of parsley in the gravy. And yes, today we're using premade gravy. It came on the side of some recent drive-thru chicken.

The pie nearly spilled out of the pan, but we got it into the oven with no sloshing whatsoever.

I wanted to write that despite the original recipe's high baking temperature, you can bake this at 350° (gas mark 4, 180°C) if you want to slide it next to something else in the oven-- or if you're trying not to abuse the air conditioning in the summer. Unlike tater tots or a frozen pizza, nothing about this seems like it needs to bake in an extra-hot oven. But I was unable to test that because the oven got commandeered for one of those frozen dinner-tray things that bakes at 450°. That's gas mark 8 or 230°C--- substantially hotter than the recipe's original oven by any measuring system. The pie didn't seem to mind.

I didn't think a pan of cheese and gravy could be so precisely calibrated for a specific ingredient, but this really tasted like it should contain fish. And while the scant pint gravy was right for the original recipe, it was far too much for the mushrooms.

I don't mind that it was a sloppy mess on the plate (some of the best foods are), but it's more of a casserole than a pie. The potatoes, in addition to making this better simply by being potatoes, did make our pan a lot easier to clean. None of the gravy or mushrooms made contact long enough to get burnt and stuck on. 

The mushrooms weren't bad in this, but it wasn't the best way to appreciate them. If I make this again (and I have a feeling I will), I will cut the gravy in half and omit the parsley. We already know that mushrooms and gravy go together like cranberry sauce and celery.

Potato-Egg Pie: It's so good you'd never believe we started with fresh ingredients

I think the pie pan makes this a pie.

Potato-Egg Pie 3 small potatoes, cooked and sliced (peel if desired) 3 hard-boiled eggs, sliced 2 tablespoons flour 1½ cups milk 1 tablespoon butter 3 ounces cheese (¾ cups shredded) Salt and pepper to taste About 3 tbsp breadcrumbs Heat oven to 350°. Grease a pie pan. Shake a little bit of salt and pepper in the bottom of the pan, then lay the potato slices on top of it. Lay the sliced boiled eggs on top of the potatoes. Melt the butter in a saucepan. Thoroughly whisk the flour into the milk. Then add it to the butter and cook, stirring constantly, until it boils. Remove from heat and add the cheese, stirring until it melts, Then add the breadcrumbs. Pour/spread this over the potatoes and eggs. Bake until lightly browned on top, about 20 minutes. "In the Kitchen," The Southern Districts Advocate; Katanning, Western Australia; July 8, 1935; page 3

As we noted a few recipes ago, The Southern Districts Advocate devoted an entire edition of "In the Kitchen" to cheese and pudding. Naturally, we couldn't resist trying the other cheesy recipes, starting with the pie. (The steamed puddings will have to wait until we dig our jackets back out of the closet.)

The Southern Districts Advocate; Katanning, Western Australia; July 8, 1935

When I saw the title "Cheese Pie" in all capitals, I imagined a whole pie shell filled with glorious cheese and barely enough other things to hold it together. I thought we would melt an entire party cheese tray into a single pie pan and euphemistically call it a casserole. It sounded so delicious that I barely managed to wait long enough for one of the last chilly nights of late spring.

Instead of starting with a cheese grater, the cheese pie starts off with potatoes. This is when I learned that no matter what you do, potatoes will always take longer than you think. I thought the pressure cooker might be faster than boiling, but we still had to wait half an hour. In a fortunate accident, the potato was perfectly cooked when the pressure cooker boiled itself dry and the top stopped jiggling. It had also unwrapped itself.

I had to kind of smush the potato slices into the pan, but they already looked like a mess anyway. Because I always like potatoes better with the skins left on, I kind of pressed the last little fallen-off bits into the gaps between potato pieces.

Next, we added the boiled eggs. I would like to once again say how much I love Delia Smith's egg-boiling tutorial. These came out perfect. No runniness in the center, and none of those unbearable gray rings that cause so much stove-side fretting.

Moving over to the melted butter, I wasn't sure why we're supposed to add the milk "gradually." Though it was kind of interesting to see the first splash of it turn into a yolk-free fried egg.

 

We are next directed to stir in the flour. I suspected this would end in a lumpy mess, but nevertheless gave The Southern Districts Advocate the benefit of the doubt. After all, every printed recipe theoretically worked for someone. Of course, I couldn't stir hard enough without sloshing the entire pan all over the stove. I had to pour everything back out so I could whisk it in something more suitable. (Isn't it nice to have a dishwasher so I don't have to worry about the pileup?)

I knew this lumpy mess would happen would do it anyway.

Ahh, doesn't that look better?

Next, it was finally time to put the cheese in the cheese pie! I know we're cutting this recipe to a third, but I expected a lot more cheese from a recipe that title-drops it. Perhaps I am a bit picky about my cheese pies, but I think the cheese should be a beautiful orange mountain over the sauce we're about to stir it into. I guess with a depression on, we had to economize on cheese even when featuring it.

Lastly, we are supposed to add "breadcrumbs to taste." Unfortunately, I am not Australian enough to have any taste in breadcrumbs. Then I remembered that Delia Smith made something called "bread sauce" in one of her Christmas specials. (I know Delia is British, but there's a lot of culinary overlap between the two countries so we'll just go with it.) I copied the amounts from her recipe because Delia has never done us wrong.

When we stirred this together, it tasted like a grilled cheese. (Or is it a cheese toastie in Australian?) Our sauce had also turned into a paste. The recipe says to "pour over potatoes, etc" but we ended up ineptly spreading it instead.

To my light surprise, our pie's top layer actually browned a little bit in the oven. It didn't look like a sauce, though. Instead, it was more like I had poured some sort of bread batter on top which had then baked in place.

When I tasted this, I couldn't believe the recipe didn't start with getting last night's dinner back out of the fridge. n the most carb-stupored way possible, this is what leftovers should taste like. It was the same kind of satisfying as Mrs. Mary Martensen's fish pie (which also uses potatoes and cheese). Very little of today's cheese pie remained to put away after the pan got cold.