Pie....Again

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All about lard...

I remember getting into making pie crusts with lard back in the 1970's.

Another shopper, a middle aged black lady, and I spoke about it when we were shopping for shortening in the "Co-Op" dairy aisle. The one comment she made was that she liked using lard for pastry because "it gives it that old timey taste"...

Back then Crisco was made with tons of trans fat (partially hydrogenated vegetable oil). I have avoided Crisco for that reason for the past 10 years or so. A few months ago I perused a newer version of the product, and I saw that it says it contains zero trans fat, and instead uses more naturally saturated fats like palm oil instead. These are probably better for you than partially hydrogenated fats, but I think even healthier would probably be real butter or even lard.

Question for Kelly: You mentioned that modern butters are made with sweet cream and therefore are less flavorful than earlier butters. What were those earlier butters made from, and how can one locate some? I seem to agree that the butter I use today (mainly to flavor corn on the cob or popcorn) doesn't seem to have as much flavor as I remember from years back. I thought it was just me...
 
I gave up on Crisco in theory years ago because of the trans fat issue. (I say "theory" because I wasn't actually using it ever then. But it was a product I had used in the past without thinking twice.) At that point, I decided that if I ever baked a pie crust again, it would either be one based off cooking oil, or butter.

Even with reformulation, I'm not sure I'd embrace Crisco now if it's palm oil based. I've heard rumblings that palm oil is a bad thing environmentally. It's not an issue I've studied enough to come to a conclusion--but the rumblings are enough to make me concerned.

I feel more comfortable with butter these days than I do with oddly engineered replacement fats.

Link to Wikipedia article on environmental issues of palm oil:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_of_palm_oil
 
The best butter I've tried--not that I've tried all butters, or even all locally available butters--has been Organic Valley. They seem to have more variety than just "butter" or (at best) "salted butter" vs "unsalted butter."

Of course, it's possible that something would be better, like butter made years back. However, this is what I can get easily now.

It's more expensive than a house brand, but it does go on sale. Particularly around holiday time. Last Christmas, I think I saw really low prices on it.
 
Real lard from a good butcher is wonderful for pastry and frying. It looks nothing like the solid white commercially produced product from the supermarket. I recall my mother telling how her own mother rendered her own lard from the "leaf lard" she obtained from her butcher. Fresh leaf lard is transluscent and isn't completely solid. A good ethnic butcher should be able to sell you some. There is a local Italian salumeria that will sell it to me a few times per year. Also, I am not sure, but I thought you could also get from the website for "Flying Pig Farms" - the thing I don't recall is if you can get it already rendered or if you have to render it yourself.

There is no equal for frying or piecrusts. And it adds a subtle yet unidentifiable savory flavor to foods.
 
Lard

My Grandparents put it up in 3 gallon buckets, when they killed hogs they rendered the lard in an iron wash pot outside over a fire,..When you go out and pick up a chicken off the ground, kill and clean it , then put it in a iron pan full of hot lard, now you talk about real fried chicken, it is nothing like this old drug filled fowl you get today...as for the un healthy part, I figure if its not full of fat sugar or cholesterol, it sure cant taste worth anything!..Oh yeah, if you wonder why some lard is good and some not..First, if you kill a hog in heat, the lard wont be fit to eat, also if you dont kill it in the correct sign of the moon, it will be awful, as will your meat, ever wonder why some bacon frys pretty, and some curls up and looks awful...you guessed it, wrong sign! I believe in the almanac, I will NEVER go to the dentist without checking it!!
 
Pertwang

My mother and her mother left cream to stand on the counter until it clabbered or began to thicken and have a little twang.  It was then churned into butter, washed, salted and stored in the fridge.  If the cream was left too long it began to spoil and taste very strong.  If it didn't temper long enough the flavor was bland.  Clover affected the taste making more grassy than when the cows were eating hay.  If the butter wasn't washed and buttermilk remained in the mix it would develope an off staste in a hurry.  The best butters I tasted recently have all been Australian and those have been on Cathay airlines.  There are boutique butters, organic butters and triple cream butter that can have more flavor but they are hit and miss by brand.

Almost all butters churned commercially in the US are made from sweet cream or fresh cream having no bacterial influence in flavor.
 
Thanks, Kelly.

I did a little googling after I posted, and today there appear to be two main types of butter: "sweet cream", which is made from pasteurized fresh cream, and "cultured", which similar to what your mom made, is made from cream that has been allowed to ferment a bit before being churned into butter.

Interestingly, the USA and England produce mostly sweet cream, bland butter. Europe tends to make more cultured butter.

And of course there are all sorts of boutique butters with various flavors, but I would classify those as falling under the broad "cultured butter" category.
 
Kelly - while I have enough goodies in the kitchen to keep a chef happy for weeks on end, I've never baked a thing in my life. Your process looks so easy but I suspect it takes a ton of practice to have such a delicious pie to enjoy after dinner!

Ben
 
Rich, I may be totally and completely off here, but I seem to remember some where an issue or "concern" if whipped cream was overwhipped. If you whipped it too long, it would turn into butter, is something I vaguely remember as a cavaet to whipping cream. And yes, you'd use heavy cream. Unless the expert(s) pooh pooh what I've stated, I'd say go for it in an experiment. Make sure bowl and wire whip are properly chilled.
 
The best butter!

You need to find a farm where they will sell you un pasturized milk,,,yeah, straight out of the cow! You strain it thru cheese cloth, then let it stand at room temperature overnight, or until clabbered, it will look kind of curdled, then churn it, if you want mostly butter with very little buttermilk, use just the cream, normally grandmother used the whole milk, she had a square Dazey churn with a crank on it, it would churn about 3 gallons of milk at a time, when your butter is made, then you take it out, wash it in cold water to harden it and get the milk out, then add salt and put it in your mold, then wrap or cover and put it in your fridge.
 
Whip It, Shake It, Beat It Good

Agitation is all it takes to makes butter.  Churns have a dasher that pulled up and down like a slow motion Pulsator, modern churns have a wooden beater a bit like a ramp vane agitator, a mixer does a good job but splatters as the butter clumps form on the blades and some people simply shake it in a mason jar.  The food processor is far and away the fastest but when the butter forms it throws the buttermilk out at the space the lids meet the container.  I put the processor in the sink if that's what I choose to you.  I have made butter in a mixer often, but never a Kitchenaid.
 
"Agitation is all it takes to makes butter."

I have a vague sense that I made butter when very young. Maybe a preschool project, using a sealed jar? Or at home using a kid's cookbook and a held held mixer? Possibly both at different times? Whatever--it was made.

The part I do recall was trying to convince my mother my mother that we should start making our own butter rather than buying it. (Not that we bought it very often. My mother unfortunately went to the dark margarine side!)
 
"You need to find a farm where they will sell you un pasturized milk,,,yeah, straight out of the cow!"

This may or may not be legal depending on where one lives. Apparently some states find that--even with great care--raw milk is a no-no, even though Big Food Inc--guaranteed to give heart disease, cancer, and other diseases in time--is just fine. Fortunately, it appears that raw milk is an option in many states.

I have a vague memory of having some years and years back. I was always a milk hater, and, for a while, one store my mother shopped at had raw milk in the nutrition department. It was the first milk I ever had that I could stand the taste of. Ironically, shortly after discovering a milk I could stand drinking, I was diagnosed with a milk allergy, and had give milk up.

A website with info on raw milk, including state by state laws, and places to buy. Page linked to is places to buy. Other pages include info about why buy raw milk. One statement interested me:

"Back in the 20s, Americans could buy fresh raw whole milk, real clabber and buttermilk, luscious naturally yellow butter, fresh farm cheeses and cream in various colors and thicknesses. Today's milk is accused of causing everything from allergies to heart disease to cancer, but when Americans could buy Real Milk, these diseases were rare."

http://www.realmilk.com/where5.html
 
In some states.......

it is possible to own shares in a cow, sort of like a garden share. As an owner there are things that are legal that would not be legal for a common-or-garden variety shopper.

Might want to call the nearest United States Department of Agriculture extention office and see what might be available.

Lawrence/Maytagbear
 
As an owner there are things that are legal

At least for the moment this has truth. There are those scary sounding e-mail messages that go flying into my in box that suggest that any sort of home gardening will soon be outlawed or highly regulated.... Paranoia or special interest scare tactics I hope--but in this crazy era, one never knows. Why, if people eat real food that tastes good, they will be less inclined to buy cheap processed foods and fast food. Both of which both help the bottom line of mega corporations AND the medical industry when those processed foods helps start some expensive disease. We certainly can't have these all important profits taken away....
 
I suppose there may be ways of getting raw milk where its technically illegal. I have a vision of buying raw milk from a man wearing a trench coat and sunglasses after dark in a deserted alley someplace.... Seriously, though, banning things probably only stop the most honest people, and the people who aren't honest, but don't really care that much about the banned product.

The site I linked to above has a section of laws for each state. Good news for those wanting raw milk is that it's apparently legal in many states. Link is to site I mentioned above, but this link is specifically to the state law page:

http://www.realmilk.com/happening.html
 
I tried to make pie once from scratch.

I think pies might be one of those things that take practice. Some might get it more easily than others, of course.

I can't remember any huge disasters with my pie baking, but I do recall lots of work patching small rips that appeared in the dough.

I can vividly recall the pain in trying to bake a cake from scratch. It took several rounds with this particular recipe to get the results promised. Fortunately, the early tries were good enough to choke down, even if they were not what they should have been.
 
Kelly - what beautiful crust you make (among other things!). But the best part is your preparation - it's so UNcomplicated. I've used my food processor to make pie crust, and it does OK, but I hate all the clean up with the machine. I loved you using your KA mixer to tackle this task - and it looks like it does a fine job.

There is something about "cutting in" the shortening with the flour that I enjoy somehow (when I use a pastry blender). But it certainly takes more time than your mixer method.

Thanks for another good lesson in good baking! Between the postings from you and Hans, it got me in a mood to make a pie this weekend - I'll post the video soon. I wish I'd seen your post first, I would have made my crust using the mixer. Oh well, another good excuse to make pies again soon!
 
Not Better, Just Faster

Using a mixer, rolling without chilling, no pie weights etc are not to suggested the abridged methods I employ are better, they are simply faster.  There are two objectives I have when cooking, using appliances and extracting the maximim flavor potential in a finished dish.  One bowl and one paddle for pie crust are not only faster but create less items to wash up.  Mix the filling in the same bowl used to mix the pie crust.  When the pie is baking there is little left to clean up.

Cooking can be an artform and also way of expressing devotion, compassion and affection.  Cooking nurtures both the cooker and the eater in ways that are not threatening.  I admonish every culinarian to prepare foods using the tools and technique that soothe their soul.  Practice helps more than any machine, recipe, technique or ingredient.
 
"Cooking can be an artform and also way of expressing devotion, compassion and affection. Cooking nurtures both the cooker and the eater in ways that are not threatening."

Amen, brother! Beautifully put!
 
Cooking can be an artform and also a way of expressing devotion, compassion and affection.  Cooking nurtures both the cooker and the eater in ways that are not threatening.

 

Kelly, with your gentle, kind, spiritually insightful and ever-generous contributions to the forum you truly embody the meaning of the term companion/companero/copain/companionem........a person with whom one "breaks bread." 

 

Thank you Kelly, Kevin, and everyone here who so warmly share your love of cooking "from the heart."

 

Neil

 
 
Kelly

The picture up a ways in this thread showing the rhubarb pie has my mouth watering. You are such an excellent cook and baker and I have seen your skills at work many times. You do have a way of making everything seem so simple and it is all due to your tremendous talent and big heart.

Now, I must somehow conjure up a rhubarb pie! LOL

Patrick
 
Whole Wheat Pastry Crust

While Mr. Bernard Clayton ,Jr. is no longer with us, his estate and it's attorneys are very much alive and FWIU don't take kindly to unauthorised posts of recipes.

Googled around the Web and could find lots of posts from Mr. Clayton (most if not all either from himself, the rest with permission), but couldn't find the one for whole wheat pastry crust. Will see if I can find a similar one on the Internet somewhere.

As the above poster mentioned you must use WW pastry flour, not the stuff you bake bread wtih.
 

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