American Apple Pie

Apple picking is in full swing (and almost finished?) in the Netherlands. Gorgeous, juicy, red apples, freshly picked by our friends Dragan and Biba, appeared at our doorstep. What else could I do? I made a good old fashioned American Apple Pie.

Can I just say "food porn"? In my opinion, nothing compares to American apple pie. Just watch the movie "American Pie" and you'll see what I mean.

If you want to create this delicacy at home you'll need 5 large apples(good ones are Gala or Fuji), flour, sugar, cinnamon, butter, salt, corn starch, and ice cold water. And you'll need some time. First, make the pie crust. Do it ahead of time, the night before, and store your discs in the refrigerator for up to 24 hours(or freeze the discs for up to a month or two) . I love Joy of Cooking's pie crust, a standard pate brisse, which Jenny and I used to call 'Pah-tay Briss-ay' until we heard Martha mention it as 'Pat Briss' and we realized our utter non-Frenchness.

The key to pate brisse is cold butter. No, I don't mean refrigerator-cold butter, I mean freeze it! Take your 230g of butter, unsalted, of course, out of the refrigerator and cut it into little pieces. Preferably, perfect pea-sized pieces, but any small random bits will do. Next, put this mess of butter in the freezer for at least 20 minutes. While you wait, put your flour, salt, and sugar in a food processor, or a large bowl and mix. Once the butter is too cold to handle with your Raynauds-fingers, place it in with your blended flour mixture. Food process it to the beat of "mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord..." You know the song, right? Anyway,  if you don't have a food processor, get a pastry blender and get good at it and be quick about it.  Next, add the ice-cold water and pulse-blend until just combined. You'll know it is ready when you can pinch a bit of it with your fingers and it sticks together like playdough. Do not over-blend. Trust me. And don't let the butter even think about getting warm.

Place two large pieces of saran-wrap on the counter and put half of the dough in each piece, shaping it into a flat disc using the edges of the saran wrap. Try not to handle it too much. If the dough does not feel cold, put it in the fridge for a few minutes before shaping it into a disc. If you keep the butter cold throughout this process, your mouth will thank you when you bite into the lovely flakiness later.

Leave the two discs in the fridge overnight (preferable) or for at least an hour. Pre-heat your oven to 425 degrees F (210 C). Take each disc out and flour your work surface (use a piece of wax paper or parchment paper on the counter), flour your rolling pin, wait a few minutes for the dough to be rollable and go for it. If you try to roll it and it breaks apart on the edges, it is still a bit too cold. But don't let it get warmer than about 68 degrees F (20 C). Roll it into a circle for a 9" pie plate.  The overall thickness is less important than just getting it consistent and big enough for your pie plate.

Once it is rolled, place it in the fridge on a cookie sheet to keep it cool while you do the bottom crust. Do the same thing for the bottom crust and then flip over your paper and place it in the pie plate. Trim the edges to the edge of the pie (if you are making a top crust) or to about 1 inch overhang (and fold under) if you are not making a top crust. Place the bottom crust (that's in the pie plate) also into the fridge to keep it cool as well while you make the filling.

If you have an 'Apple Peeler Corer Slicer" machine, use it! If not, get your apples ready manually. You should have about 5.5 cups of apples, or a large bowl-full.

Next, add the cornstarch (3 Tbsp), sugar (3/4 cup), cinnamon (2 tsp), and lemon juice from half a lemon and stir it up well. If your apples are super sweet you can reduce the sugar to 2/3 cup or even less. Viktorija would say, "use less sugar!" She is smart.

Let this mixture sit for about 10 minutes, stirring occasionally, and when the timer goes off, get the pie crusts out of the fridge and pour the mixture into the bottom crust.

Now, run a finger dipped in cold water around the edge(so the top crust will stick), dot the top with bits of butter (about 2 Tbsp total) and then place the top crust on, peeling back the paper as you do.

Trim the top crust to hang over about 1 inch, and then fold it underneath the bottom crust on the edges.

Crimp the edge by pinching with your thumb and first finger on one hand and your first finger on the other hand. Or just use a fork like my grandma used to do- pressing it around the edge to make lines. If you have a thin spot, just use some of the scraps you have from the trimming to thicken it up from underneath. If you have lots of scraps and feel like being creative you can re-roll them out and use a cookie cutter to make a pretty topping on your pie. But be quick about it, or do it ahead. The total time for you to get the filling in, top on, decoration done is less than 5 minutes. Apply the cut-out shapes with cold water to make them stick.

Sprinkle the top of the pie with a mixture of sugar (2 Tbsp) and cinnamon (1 tsp) (it will stick better if you sprinkle a tiny bit of water on the pie first) and put a few slits in the top crust with a knife. I've done four above.

Damn, this is starting to sound complex. We're almost done. I promise, it is worth it.

Bake the pie with a cookie sheet on another rack placed underneath the pie to catch the drippings. You'll want to bake it for 30 minutes and then turn the oven down to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) and put a pie-shield on and bake for 30 to 40 minutes more, or until a knife reveals bubbly juices.

If you don't have a pie shield you can make one out of foil, or skip it and deal with a slightly burned edge. You can see the apple shapes I put on top got a little bit burny. I could have covered them with foil to prevent this.

Serve the pie after a few hours (the inside will set-up nice). The pie is best the day it is made. Here is another example in a prettier pie plate (and it is slightly larger, too- 10 inches, which also works fine.)

If you make this pie for your boyfriend, he will ask you to marry him. It totally worked for me.

The ubiquitous Albert Heijn (AH)

If you currently live or have lived in the Netherlands you will know about Albert Heijn. AH is a grocery store that you can find just about everywhere here. The size of the store depends based on location- tiny "AH To Go" at train stations and medium sized stores in smaller neighborhoods. For a real treat check out the AH-XL, as the name implies, it is huge. Strangely, it does not have much more selection than our AH in Aalst, however, just bigger aisles and a few things that might make a trip there worth it if I'm in the neighborhood. For those Rochester folk reading this... think of a standard Wegmans but maybe half as much selection. AH tries to be the grocery store with friendly, helpful staff, but I have to say employees are mostly ignorant of the store's products or locations of products. Even if I know the Dutch word for something and I show it to them written down (more on that later) they have to ask someone else. Not like Wegmans employees who always know where something is and will race a fellow employee to tell you the answer faster (and want to show you too, if you like). Not to say the AH employees aren't nice. But unless you are looking for something like milk or bread or standard Dutch cheese they have no idea what you're talking about.

The Dutch love their Gouda cheese. And it isn't like the Gouda I remember buying at Wegmans occasionally for a recipe- no- this stuff is actually quite good on its own and in a sandwich and grated in a taco. It is quite versatile, thank goodness, because it is just about all they have here. My Dutch friends would argue there is a wide selection of cheese- you have "Oud" (old), "Belegen" (medium), "Jong" (young) and all the combinations in between. Also, several brands are available in each of those options, and you can also buy sliced or grated or just a big chunk of cheese.

I love the packets of sliced AH brand Jong-Belegen for sandwiches or melted on a fried egg. If you want 'fresher' cheese you can hit the market or the other cheese section of AH:

 

Look at all this cheese! (it's almost all gouda)

Lest you be confused upon shopping at AH, I'll explain. For convenience sake there is a cheese section with all the pre-packaged cheese and one more like a deli-counter. Wegmans does a similar thing. However, I bet you would never have guessed there are two cracker sections at AH. One has crackers and things like these: "Echte Beschuit" (Think of a circular piece of bread, toasted, preserved, and packaged up in a tube- similar in texture to melba toast.) These beschuit are eaten with butter and "muisjes" (pictured sitting to the left of the beschuit) which are anise seeds covered in a candy shell in either pink and white or blue and white. They are served to guests when a new baby is born in the Netherlands and the muisjes are said to help increase milk supply for breastfeeding mothers.  I enjoy the muisjes and put them on toast or on sugar frosted cookies. The beschuit, on the other hand, along with melba toast, is best used in my opinion as a hockey puck.

The other section that has crackers at AH is near the wine. Because you have crackers with wine, of course! And the sugar and brown sugar are located in the coffee aisle. Because sugar is used with coffee or tea, since not many people bake here.

Here is Dina, with her pint-sized shopping cart (love this feature at AH!) in the tea/coffee aisle. Note the sugar next to the coffee creamers.

One other thing amazes me about AH: the candy aisle. It is insane!

We buy the licorice that looks like spirals. It is considered 'zacht and zoet' which means soft and sweet. Licorice, or 'drop' comes in so many different varieties. Soft, hard, sweet, salty- and any combination of these. Its tricky because salt is 'zout' - just one letter different than sweet.  And the Haribo gummy bears- you just can't beat them. Unfortunately, Dina likes to eat them without chewing- she can down a handful in less than a minute.

Berry Dream Parfait

When Dina was a couple of months old I took her to the 'Consultatiebureau' which is Dutch for 'place to take your kid for wellness-visits and immunizations'. On this particular visit I met Viktorija and her baby, Leticia.  I feel lucky to call Viktorija my friend. She and her family are from Croatia and so have very interesting recipes to share with me! One of her most favorite desserts is something like a 'berrymisu' which reminds me of tiramisu but with berries instead of coffee. It is best made the day before you want to serve it, as the flavors blend together beautifully in the fridge overnight. If you don't have the exact measurements for this recipe, or you have something similar, do not worry. Viktorija would say, "Make it how you want! Use what you have!" and my favorite, "Relax!"

Berry Dream Parfait
2 packages Marscapone cheese (about a cup or 500g total)
2 cups (500 ml) heavy cream (slagroom)
1/2 cup sugar (fijn krystal suiker) (about 100 g)
1/2 cup water (125 ml)
juice of half a lemon - about 2 Tbsp
1 tsp vanilla
2 packages of lady fingers or 1 package of Dutch egg-cookies (eieren koekje)
500 grams (about 2 pints) strawberries (aardbeien), hulled and sliced

Beat cream on high speed until stiff peaks form. If desired add a bit of powdered sugar (I prefer it without sugar). In another bowl, beat marscapone cheese until smooth. Fold in the whipped cream, but don't stress if it is lumpy.

Next, bring water and sugar to a boil in a saucepan. Once it is boiling, take it off the heat, transfer to a dish to cool and add lemon juice and vanilla. If you don't have vanilla you can add some other liquor or orange flower water.

Using a large glass bowl or other container, dip each egg-cookie or ladyfinger into the sugar/water/lemon mixture and line the bottom. Spoon the cream/marscapone mixture in a layer and then add sliced berries. Repeat this with more dipped cookies, cream and berries until you have filled your container or run out of ingredients, whichever happens first. The best way to end this layering is with a layer of cream on the top and maybe a few strategically placed berries for garnish. You can also garnish with a sprig of mint.

Chill for at least an hour and preferably overnight. Serve in glasses for an elegant effect!

If you don't have Marscapone cheese, Philadelphia cream cheese is a good substitution.

This photo is of the first time I had this dessert, at Viktorija's house. Notice the beautiful arrangement of raspberries she added to the top. Most of the time I'm in a rush and forget to garnish this fabulous dessert. But this photo reminded me of how pretty it can look!