Adapted from New York Cult Recipes by Marc Grossman
One of the greatest things about cultural exchange is food. When the Europeans settled in the Americas, they were met with some of the most incredible produce, flavour textures and most especially nutritional foods then they could have imagined in Europe. But because food supply wasn’t always stable in Europe, Europeans had developed cooking techniques and recipes that made the most of the food they had. When combining pie making skills of Europe with the abundance of the Americas a whole new gastronomic marvel hit tables; the American Pie, usually identified as deep-dish, overstuffed or mile high. Gone was the thin French apple tart,, with its meager amount of fruit, in pies overfilled with earthy goodness. No better example of this exists then the pumpkin pie, pumpkin a native of the americas, was one of the first foods brought back to europe, nutritious and abundant, in europe initially it was used as feed for livestock, but in America the pumpkin puree met butter crust and this autumnal treat was born.
I want to have my pie and eat it too, but religious restrictions of how long I wait between eating meat and milk, meaning that the pie below can be made parve or dairy. The difference between the two is most noticeable in the crust, where butter makes the crust rich and tender, and vegan alternatives make for a softer, more elastic, and therefore easier to roll crust.
For Pastry:
- ½ recipe Flaky pie dough
Filling:
- 3 eggs
- 1 egg yolk
- 120 g (4 ½ oz) light brown sugar
- 140g (½ cup) maple syrup
- 345g (1 ½ cupsl) single (pouring) cream (or soya single cream)
- 1 (415g/14 oz) tin (can) pumpkin puree
- 2 ½ teaspoons pumpkin pie spice
- Prepare the pastry, and allow it to set up in the fridge for at least an hour, or up to 3 days. If you plan on making the pastry well in advance you can freeze the dough for up to a month. If the dough is too hard to roll when it comes out of the fridge, allow to soften before rolling out.
- Heat oven to 170℃ (325℉).
- On a floured surface, using a floured rolling pin, roll out the dough large enough to hang over a 23cm (9 inch) pie dish by a couple of centimeters. Place the dough round into the dish. And push into the seam of the dish, pinch the top of the dough to create a crimped edge. Using the tines of a fork pierce the pie shell all over, cover the pie shell with a large piece of baking paper, and top with dried beans or baking beans. Bake for 40 minutes until the edges are golden, remove the baking paper and beans and bake for a further 2 minutes until the rest of the pie looks golden all over, remove from the oven.
- For the filling: raise the temperature of the oven to 180℃ (350℉). In a large bowl whisk together the eggs, egg yolk, and sugar. Mix in the maple syrup, cream, pumpkin puree and spice, mixing in one at a time until well combined. Pour the filling into the baked pastry shell – do not overfill – bake for about 40 minutes until the filling has set.
- Serve warm or at room temperature.
