Southern Thanksgiving Tradition: Sweet Potato Pie

When it comes to Thanksgiving, my thoughts do not go tripping down to the pumpkin patch; instead, the sweet potato vine beckons.

I gew up with my Grandma making both pies, though in truth, she preferred making the sweet potato pies.

I know why.

Not only do they cook up into a tastier, smoother custard, they are easier to make from scratch.

Contending with a real live pumpkin is a matter far removed from opening a can.

Frankly, it is a pain in the butt.

However, preparing sweet potatoes to be made into a custard for a pie is simplicity itself.

You wash them off, pierce them with a fork a couple of time and roast them in an oven at four hundred degrees until they are completely soft in the middle.

Then you cool them, peel them and mash them.

Pumpkins have seed with stringy icky-poo crap inside of them and then you have to boil out the water–blah. Who has time for that when you have a bunch of other stuff to do.

Besides–sweet potato pie just plain old tastes better than pumpkin pie. There are no possibilities for stringiness, the custard is less watery and the inherent sweet potato flavor is much better–rich, moist and very satisfying.

I proselytize for the sweet potato pie every chance I get–because for some unknown reason a lot of Yankee folks have never had one before.

Well, here is a recipe–the original was published in the New York Times in 2003–Karen Barker is the originator. I have since meddled with it, though, and changed flavorings and the amount of sugar significantly, as well as actually bothering to have instructions on how to make a pie crust for the thing. (Karen assumed we all knew how to make a pie crust and blind bake it. At the time, I had no clue–but I have since learned.)

Anyway–do your tastebuds a favor and bake up a sweet potato pie sometime, and see if I am not right that it beats the hell out of pumpkin pie any day.

Sweet Potato Pie

Ingredients:

1 1/2 pounds sweet potatoes
3/8 cup heavy cream
6 tablespoons maple syrup
3 tablespoons raw sugar
4 tablespoons melted browned butter
1/4 cup Carolan’s Irish Cream liquor (use Baileys if you must…)
3 large eggs
1 egg yolk
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ginger
1/4 teaspoon Five Spice Powder (I had some leftover from the cookies….so..well, why not?)
1/8 teaspoon finely ground white pepper
1 pre-baked pie crust made using my lard-butter crust recipe*

Method:

Wash sweet potatoes, pierce several times with a fork and bake in a 400 degree oven for one hour or until completely soft. Remove from oven, allow to cool, peel and mash into a stiff puree. (I use a potato masher and do this by hand–but you can use an immersion blender if you want it to be completely smooth. Tiny lumps do not bother me.) Turn oven down to 325 degrees.

Wisk together sweet potatoes with all other ingredients, and pour into the pie shell. (Don’t worry, I am going to tell you how to make the pie shell in a minute. Be patient.)

Put it into the oven, cover the edge of the crust with your pie chakram or some strips of aluminum foil, and bake for 45-50 minutes.

Allow to cool completely on a rack, before covering.

Serve with unsweetened freshly whipped cream.

*How to make a pre-baked pie crust.

Make crust following the instructions for the lard butter crust. Freeze half the dough, and use the other half to line a pie plate. Trim edges so they overhang the pie plate by about 1/2 inch. Tuck edge under itself to make it slightly thicker and press dough together to hold it. Flute edge by whatever means you like to use–I do the thumb and fingers method.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Get a piece of aluminum foil big enough to cover the bottom of the pie crust and then stick up by a few inches. Make a cup out of the foil and lay it in the bottom of the pie crust, and then weight it down with some beans or pie weights or something.

Bake it for fifteen minutes. Take out the foil and the weights, turn the oven down to 375, and bake it another fifteen minutes.

That is it. Not so hard, eh?

food recipes Thanksgiving sweet potatoes pie

Unexpected Flavors Blossom into Cookie Alchemy

I suppose one could say it is all Zak’s fault.

Or rather, his was the inspiration.

You see, for the past two years, at Yuletide, I set out to make one more new and interesting cookie to add to my growing list of sweets that beguile the senses with flavors that one does not expect to encounter in a dessert.

Two years ago, Zak and Morganna served as my inspiration when I made a lavender, almond and cardamom-enriched shortbread that I shaped into leaves and called “Lembas,” after the Elvish waybread in Tolkien’ s Lord of the Rings. Last year, I decided to make a brownie that Montezuma would have swooned over and came up with extremely moist and fudgy ones flavored with vanilla, chiles, espresso and cinnamon. I called them “Aztec Gold,” and proceeded to let them loose among friends and family, where they cut a wide swath of weak-kneed nibblers and chocoholics, many of whom have declared them their favorite brownie ever.

So, I was musing over what I should make for my new Yule goodie this year, when Zak piped up and said, “You know those German cookies with the black pepper in them? You should do those, only, instead of black pepper, put in Sichuan peppercorns.”

Of course, my eyes widened, and my brows quirked at the wonderous possiblities that such an idea could create. And so, I set forth with the intent of making a Sichuanese version of Pfeffernuesse.

The problem with pfeffernuesse, however, is that I like them much better in theory than in actuality. A German Christmas specialty, “peppernuts” are quite hard, crunchy nuggets of a very dense dough flavored with a number of spices and fruits. The stiff dough is dried overnight–or allowed to mature for weeks–before baking, and the result is a cookie that dentists fear and those with dentures dread.

Being as I am not fond of confections that can chip a tooth, I decided to further tweak Zak’s idea. I resolved to look at the flavorings for pfeffernuesse and convert them into distinctly Chinese flavors, and then use a totally different cookie recipe as a basis for the dough.

Mexican Wedding Cookies, another Christmas tradition, became the template for the dough. They are not really a cookie so much as a pastry–the crumbly dough has no egg to hold it together, nor any leavening–it is quite simply a mixture of butter, flour, finely ground almonds and a tiny bit of sugar. All of the sweetness comes from the powdered sugar that the barely warm cookies are rolled in after baking.

Tender and light, the sweet round nuggets nearly melt in the mouth, which as far as I am concerned is about a thousand steps up from cookies make a hobby of chipping incisors.

When it came to researching pfefferneusse recipes, I ended up using Mimi Sheraton’s from her 1968 book, Visions of Sugarplums. This cookbook is a collection of cookies, cakes, candies, breads and pastries that are traditional at Christmastime all over the world. It was probably the third cookbook I bought for myself when I was around the age of thirteen or so, and I remember spending many afternoons reading avidly about all of the different interesting customary Christmas sweets.

I never really baked from it–but I loved reading it.

Well, since Sheraton’s pfeffernuesse recipe is unlike any other I have seen, I am not certain how traditional it really is, but since I wasn’t actually using it to make real German peppernuts, I didn’t overly concern myself with how authentic her ingredients and method were.

I just wanted to use them to give me a launching place for my new cookie recipe.

She called for the grated rind of one lemon, finely minced citron, finely minced candied orange peel, ground almonds, (that was what inspired me to use the Mexican Wedding Cookie recipe as a template for the dough), cinnamon, cloves, allspice, cardamom and black pepper.

As I looked at the ingredients list, I decided to drop the lemon rind altogether, and exchange crystallized ginger for the citron. In place of the candied orange peel, I used the freshly grated rind of two tangerines– Chinese cooks have used dried tangerine peel in braised dishes for centuries, and I wanted to echo that tradition. The cinnamon I kept–though I did use Vietnamese cassia–a slightly more delicate version of cinnamon. Instead of cloves, I used freshly toasted and ground star anise, and I replaced the allspice with the Sichuan peppercorns. The cardamom was replaced with dried ground ginger, and the black pepper I exchanged for a mixture of half white pepper and half black pepper, both freshly ground. (Many Chinese chefs prefer white peppercorns to black.)

Essentially, since I toasted the peppercorns, Sichuan peppercorns and star anise, then ground them, I made my very own, extremely fresh “Five Spice Powder.” Since I ground more spices than I needed for the cookies, I decided to mix them all together and keep them in a tighly covered jar for use in my further experiments in Chinese cookery.

Mixing the dough was simple, even without eggs to hold it together.

It is only a matter of creaming the butter and sugar well, then gradually adding all of the rest of the ingredients, which have previously been mixed together.

If the butter is properly soft, the dough comes together quickly and easily. Creaming the butter and sugar together instead of cutting the butter into the flour results in a very tender cookie with a very light crumb that nearly melts in the mouth.

As I always do, I used a cookie scoop to portion the dough–however, even the smallest two-tablespoon scoop that I have made balls to large to bake properly, so as is illustrated below, I cut each ball in half and then rolled the dough into smaller balls, perfectly bite-sized.

Baking this dough at a reasonably low temperature for a long time–twenty minutes–also results in a very light, soft, crumbly cookie.

As the cookies baked, the air was scented with spices and tangerine essence; it was as if some sort of tropical flowers had bloomed in my steamy kitchen, even as snowflakes drifted past the dark windows.

The final fillip, of course, is the coating of powdered sugar–this is the grace note that makes the recipe special.

I didn’t want to cover the inherent fragrance of these little cookies under a cloud of sugar, so instead, I added a teaspoon of the black and white pepper mixture to a cup of confectionary sugar and used that to coat the little speckled tan nuggets of pastry. The secret to a good sugar coating is to put the sugar and pepper in a plastic ziplock bag, and then closing it, shaking it vigorously to thoroughly mix the two. Then, three at a time, take the still slightly warm cookies and shake them in the sugar-pepper mixture, then set them back on the cooling rack until they are down to room temperature.

The still-warm cookies melt the first layer of sugar that touches them. This sticky layer makes the rest of the sugar adhere to the cookie much better than it does if you try and coat them when they are completely cool. However, if you put the cookies in while they are still hot, the sugar becomes a sticky, drizzly mess, and a very ugly cookie is the result.

And no matter how good they taste–cookies should really never be ugly.

All that remained was coming up with a name for my new creation.

Because of the cooling, tingly sensation that the Sichuan peppercorns leave on the lips and tongue after eating these cookies, and because the sugar coating looks like snow, we played with wintery words and concepts. Another strand of thought spun around the floriferous scent of the cookies that enchants and bewitches the consumer, daring him to guess the ingredients that went into its making.

We ended up calling them “Frostflowers,” thus capturing a paradoxical name for a cookie born from the widely divergent culinary traditions of several different cultures.

Frostflowers

Ingredients:

2 pieces star anise
1 tablespoon Sichuan peppercorns
1/2 tablespoon black peppercorns
1/2 tablespoon white peppercorns
3/4 cup ground untoasted, unblanched almonds
1/8 cup crystallized ginger, finely minced
1/8 cup finely grated tangerine peel (the peel of about two small tangerines)
2 cups all purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon all finely ground star anise
1 1/2 teaspoons finely ground Sichuan peppercorns
1/2 teaspoon finely ground black and white pepper mixture
1/8 teaspoon ground dried ginger
1/8 teaspoon cinnamon
1 cup softened butter
1/4 cup raw sugar
1 teaspoon black and white pepper mixture
1 cup confectioner’s sugar

Method:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Pick through Sichuan peppercorns and take out any stems or thorns that you see among the flowerbuds and seeds. Toast whole spices separately in a pan until they are fragrant. Allow to cool, and then grind each into very fine powdered, separately.

Measure out proper amounts of spices–the rest you can use in other cooking projects.

Mix together nuts, ginger, tangerine peel, flour, salt and spices.

Cream butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.

Add flour mixture in thirds, scraping down mixer bowl as needed, and mix until blended into a crumbly, yet still fairly cohesive dough.

Using a two-tablespoon cookie scoop (level the dough in the scoop as illustrated above) make rough balls of dough. Cut each ball in half and then roll into smooth rounds and set on cookie sheets about one inch apart. (There is no baking soda, so they do not spread out.)

Bake in a 350 degree oven for twenty minutes.

While they bake, mix together pepper and confectioner’s sugar in a ziplock bag.

Remove cookies when done (they should not brown) and allow to cool one minute on pan. Remove to wire rack and allow to cool until they are still barely above body temperature.

Shake them while still warm, three or so at a time, in the sugar-pepper mixture. Return to rack and allow to cool completely, then store in a tightly sealed container. They will keep for at least a week–that is, if no one eats them first.

food recipes cookies Christmas Sichuan peppercorns spices cookie swap

Thanksgiving, After the Fact

So–I meant to post this actually on Thanksgiving–oops. I missed the deadline!

But I did read a really neat piece in the New York Times today and wanted to share it with y’all.

It is one of those holiday features that is guaranteed to be heartwarming, yet this one managed to slip past my usual cynical facade and touch me. It tells how the children of recent immigrants bring the traditions of Thanksgiving to their families, and how folks from all different cultures are embracing the holiday and celebrating it wholeheartedly once they settle in the United States.

It made me think of some of my friends from Pakistan, and how excited they were to have thier first Thanksgiving feast and cook their first turkey. I remember telling them that Thanksgiving brings out the best in American cooking, and listening to them tell me how they were going to cook thier bird, and comparing it with how I planned to cook mine. They told me about how they made their first cranberry sauce, but they thought of it more as a chutney–and of how they thought it would be good to make pumpkin samosas instead of pie. (I said they could try making pumpkin kulfi–ice cream, too–and that thought caused many oohs and ahs and thoughtful musings on how to go about such a plan.)

I am reminded at Thanksgiving that we are all immigrants here–every American, unless they are completely of Native blood, is descended from immigrants. Our ancestors were once strangers, unable to speak the language, dressed differently than everyone else, and perhaps reviled or mistrusted by the Americans among whom they settled. All of us have roots that go back to different places, and every family carries a shadow of the customs, traditions and practices of their ancestral home.

But now–we are Americans–and Thanksgiving is a time to remember that we are not so different than our newest citizens than some might want to think. We should welcome everyone to our shores and our tables with open arms; we should embrace with joy the strength that having a diverse population made of myriad thriving cultures brings.

In the twenty-first century, Americans truly are, “from many, one.”

I think that is greatest lesson of Thanksgiving–that we are all one people, no matter where we are from, or what language we speak, or what beliefs we hold dear.

And though I speak of Americans–for Thanksgiving is an American holiday–the truth of that lesson does not only hold true for citizens of the United States.

The truth that I hold most sacred and dear, on Thanksgiving, and every other day is simply this–we are all one people.

I only wish I could build a table big enough for us all.

I’m Back!

Welcome to the new, and eventually, improved Tigers & Strawberries.

Yes, the pictures are kind of, well, missing right now, but we’re working on that. However, all the important content is here. Expect the pictures to reappear over the next week or so. Zak is working backwards, doing the new pictures first.

I’ll post again on Thanksgiving or, maybe, Friday. I have a lot to be thankful for … my blog didn’t explode, like it did the last time we tried to move it.

Tigers & Strawberries Notice of Impending Housecleaning

Okay folks, Zak says it is time.

No, not time to sweep the floor and scrub the carpets. (Though it wouldn’t hurt if I did that, too.)

No, my ‘net-competent and wizardly husband tells me that Thanksgiving is a good time to move my blog to tigersandstrawberries.com.

Regular readers will recall that we tried to do that this summer with great failure–we lost all of the pictures–and so the blog came back here.

But, Zak has a handle on things, and is dead set on packing up the blog and moving it tonight, tomorrow and the next day, while I am cooking in preparation for our Thanksgiving on Saturday, and he is sitting around not doing anything else.

So, if you come by in the next few days and you see no blog, a weird blog, some strange gobbledy-gook instead of words–fear not! It is only Zak breaking things and then fixing them again. So, intead of looking hither and yon, high and low and around and about like Lennier and Gummitch are doing in that picture–just sit tight, and get back with me on Sunday, when I will post and tell you all about my Thanksgiving turkey and the Four Directions Dressing which is based on cornbread, cranberries, black walnuts, wild rice and chiles–all Native American ingredients.

And there will be a post about sweet potato pie, and many other wonderful and delightful good things, sometime in the near future, if the Internet Gods are willing and the creek don’t rise.

And if you cannot find me here–type in tigersandstrawberries.com and see what happens.

And if you find me there–then change your bookmarks, and hold on to your hats, because phase II of all the changes will be about to begin. (That would be us changing blog software–which Zak swears to me will be utterly transparent to readers, and will only matter to me…but we will see.)

Wish us luck!

Oh, and for those of you who are enjoying turkey and football tomorrow–Happy Thanksgiving!

See you on Sunday!

(Or, if the Internet Gods will not be appeased, likely on Monday.)