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    Potpies: Yumminess in a Dish
    Potpies: Yumminess in a Dish
    Potpies: Yumminess in a Dish
    Ebook210 pages2 hours

    Potpies: Yumminess in a Dish

    By Elinor Klivans and Scott Peterson

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    About this ebook

    “There are as many types of potpies as there are California foodies . . . a handy framework to use when building your own comfort food.” —Chico News & Review

    With succulent fillings under their golden toppings, it’s no wonder that potpies have such a universal appeal. Author Elinor Klivans offers a huge range of filling options from vegetables and eggs to meats, chicken, or fish. And the variety of toppings is a real eye-opener: homemade crusts; story-bought phyllo or puff pastry; tortillas; quick-mixing corn bread or biscuits; even nuts, potatoes, or bread.

    These fifty recipes go from classics like beef and vegetable potpie or everyone’s favorite chicken pot pie, to new takes like the Breakfast Special Potpie: Eggs, bacon, and potatoes with an Irish soda bread crust is a great new option for brunch. Also included are plenty of meatless versions, such as the sublime Spinach, Ricotta, and Parmesan Potpie topped with a delicious cream cheese crust. Advice about assembling and baking potpies assures that all parts of the fillings will be cooked just right and toppings will stand at crispy and proud attention. With useful ideas for do-ahead preparation, storing, freezing, and re-heating, there’s nothing like Potpies!
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherOpen Road Integrated Media
    Release dateNov 16, 2012
    ISBN9781452123882
    Potpies: Yumminess in a Dish
    Author

    Elinor Klivans

    Elinor Klivans is an award-winning pastry chef trained in France and the United States. She is the author of several cookbooks, including Chocolate Cakes; 125 Cookies to Bake, Nibble, and Savor; and Bake and Freeze Desserts (a Julia Child Cookbook Award nominee), and coauthor of Williams Sonoma Essentials of Baking. Klivans is also a frequent guest on radio and television and has written for numerous national magazines.

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      Book preview

      Potpies - Elinor Klivans

      FILLING THE POTPIE

      ALL ABOUT POTPIE FILLINGS & TOPPINGS

      Potpie fillings come in unlimited combinations, but their common thread is that they use simple cooking methods. Potpie techniques run the gamut from simply stirring shrimp with seasonings and butter for a shrimp scampi filling to slow-cooking a chicken in a rich red wine sauce.

      Potpie fillings have some common characteristics. The ingredients should be bite-size. Any ground meat, meat, or chicken should be cooked thoroughly before being baked with the topping. Meat that is not ground, such as the steak in a Swiss steak potpie, is also cooked before it is baked as a potpie. The purpose of the final baking in the oven is to heat the filling and bake the topping. An exception is seafood or fish that cook quickly. These can be baked along with their topping. Fillings can include either a simple sauce or gravy or a moist filling, such as that for a ground beef and onion empanada. The baking container should be large enough to leave space between the filling and topping so that the filling does not bubble up through the topping and saturate it.

      A method often used for cooking potpie fillings is to soften or brown the vegetables or meat in a small quantity of oil or butter. Then liquid is added to simmer the ingredients to the level of doneness. The cooked filling should cool (often for about 15 minutes) before adding a topping. A crust could soften and melt if put on top of a steaming hot filling.

      Potpies have toppings (often crust, but not always), but no bottom crusts. A nice bonus is that there is no possibility of a soggy bottom crust. The topping choices are as varied as those of the fillings. Toppings include crusts of many kinds: phyllo pastry, mashed potatoes, sliced potatoes, biscuits, dumplings, a quick soda bread, tortillas, nut crumbles, or breadcrumb crusts. Crusts can be made from scratch, or a good quality store-bought one can be used. Toppings and fillings can be mixed and matched. I have given some crust choices in the recipes, but if your taste runs to mashed potatoes rather than a pastry crust, that is fine. There are no potpie police in this pie world, and personal taste is a good guide.

      PEELING TOMATOES AND POTATOES EASILY

      Tomatoes Have ready a large bowl filled with water and ice cubes. Half-fill a medium or large saucepan with water and bring it to a boil. Use a slotted spoon to gently drop the tomatoes into the water. Leave for 30 seconds and use the spoon to remove the tomatoes to the ice water. As soon as they are cool enough to handle, remove the tomatoes from the cold water, and slip off and discard the skins. The tomatoes are ready to use.

      When it is not tomato season, peeled canned tomatoes make a good tomato choice.

      Potatoes Put the potatoes in a medium or large saucepan (depending on the quantity of potatoes) and add water to cover by at least 1 inch. Bring the water to a boil. Loosely cover the pot and cook the potatoes for 20 minutes. The outside (about ¹/2 inch deep) will be soft and the inside still firm. If the potatoes need to cook completely, continue cooking them until they test tender with a fork, about 20 additional minutes depending on the size of the potatoes. Put a colander in the sink and carefully pour the potatoes into it, draining off the water. Run cold water over the potatoes until they are cool enough to handle. Use a small knife to help slip the skins off the potatoes.

      GENTLE BOILING AND SIMMERING

      Many potpie fillings cook at a gentle boil or a simmer before they bake. A gentle boil has a few large bubbles if you are not stirring it. Simmering liquid has tiny bubbles, and most of them will be around the edge of the pan.

      POTPIE INGREDIENTS

      Check your recipe ingredient list to see what you need to buy. Pantry ingredients should also be checked for freshness and replaced if necessary. One organized trip to the market saves a lot of time. In all cases, look for fresh ingredients and buy the best quality you can find.

      Butter, shortening, and oils Do not use reduced-fat butter. It has water added and reacts differently in a recipe than butter does. I use unsalted butter and add salt to the dish as needed. To keep it fresh, store unsalted butter in the freezer. For vegetable shortening, I use Crisco and buy it in the easy-to-measure stick form. When a recipe calls for vegetable oil, I use corn or canola oil, and for olive oil I choose extra-virgin olive oil from the first pressing of olives. Taste or smell all oils to check that they have a fresh smell and taste and have not turned rancid.

      Eggs Large eggs are used for the recipes in this book.

      Flour and cornmeal I use unbleached all-purpose flour. Store cornmeal in the refrigerator to keep it fresh.

      Herbs and spices Store dried herbs or spices tightly covered in a cool, dark place and check them for freshness. Storage times and conditions vary for different spices; a simple solution is the taste test. If the herb or spice is stale, it will have little or no taste. When substituting dried herbs for fresh, a general rule is that 1 teaspoon of crushed dried herbs is equal to 1 tablespoon of chopped fresh herbs.

      Fresh herbs are readily available in super-markets and are easily grown in pots on a sunny windowsill. Most fresh herbs with stems can be stored in a jar of water at room temperature for about 1 week. Change the water every day. Cut herbs can be wrapped in paper towels, placed in plastic, and stored in the refrigerator. Wash them just before using them. The storage times for fresh herbs vary, and the best way to tell if an herb is in good condition is to look at it and smell it. Fresh herbs look green, with no black or brown spots, and smell of the herb. Fresh basil, used often in my recipes, has a fairly short storage life. The best way to have it on hand is to keep a pot growing indoors or outside. Otherwise, try to buy fresh basil just before you are going to use it. Keeping it dry, wrapped in a paper towel and a plastic bag, and refrigerating it yields the longest storage time, 2 to 3 days. Fresh thyme has a storage time of as long as a month if kept dry, wrapped in plastic, and refrigerated.

      Lemon and orange zest The zest is the outside, colored part of the rind of lemons and oranges. Grate only the colored part; the white pith under the zest is bitter. Wash and dry the fruit before grating it. A Microplane grater, patterned after a woodworker’s rasp, is the best tool for grating citrus zest.

      Meat, fish, and poultry Lean meats, very fresh fish, and fresh chickens are obviously best. For ground beef, buy at least 85 percent lean. Look for fish that is bright-eyed (if whole) and shiny. Fish should have a pleasant odor and not smell fishy. Buy from a reliable fish market. It is preferable to use all meat, fish, and poultry the day that it is purchased and certainly within twenty-four hours.

      Although it is unlikely that they are contaminated, it is safest to treat all fresh meat, fish, poultry, and eggs with care. I prepare these foods on a clean dish and then wash the dish and any utensils that have come in contact with them in the dishwasher or very hot soapy water. Clean any cutting surfaces that come in contact with the meat, fish, poultry, or eggs with a sanitizing solution of 1 tablespoon of bleach mixed with 4 cups of water. Finally, wash your hands with soap frequently, and for at least 20 seconds for each washing. Remember, even if the chance of contamination is slim, it only takes seconds to keep food and preparation areas clean and free of bacteria.

      Milk and cream I have noted in the recipes whether the recipe needs milk with a particular fat content. Buttermilk is low-fat or fat-free milk that has been cultured with bacteria. It has a thick texture and slightly sour taste. I use fat-free buttermilk in my recipes. I use heavy whipping cream (36 to 40 percent butterfat) when recipes call for cream.

      Nuts The new crop of nuts appears in supermarkets from September to December, and this is a good time to buy a year’s supply. Store them in the freezer in a tightly sealed heavy-duty freezer bag or plastic freezer container for up to 1 year or in the refrigerator for up to 1 month.

      Chopping nuts with a large, sharp knife gives good control over the size of the chopped nut. Finely chopped nuts should be about ¹/8 inch in size, and coarsely chopped nuts between ¹/4 inch and ³/8 inch in size. For ground nuts, use a food processor. Processing the nuts with some of the sugar or flour from the recipe allows the nuts to become finely ground without forming a paste.

      To toast nuts, spread them out in a single layer on a baking sheet and bake them in an oven preheated to 325°F. Bake blanched sliced or slivered almonds for about 12 minutes, or until they become golden, and blanched whole almonds for about 15 minutes, or until they become golden. Just before the nuts are ready, you will smell a pleasant aroma of toasting nuts.

      Salt and pepper I use kosher salt, which is free of preservatives and has a clear, fresh taste. Ground black pepper becomes dry and flavorless quickly, so I keep a pepper grinder filled with whole peppercorns and grind pepper as I need it.

      Vegetables Take a good look at vegetables before buying them. Broccoli and carrots should be firm and crisp. Onions should be firm and free of mold. Choose young, firm eggplants and zucchini. Sweet peppers and tomatoes should have no soft spots. Fresh garlic should not have green stems in the center of the cloves; if yours does, remove it before using. Coarsely chopped vegetables are about ¹/4 inch in size. Finely chopped vegetables are about ¹/8 inch in size.

      COOKED CHICKEN & CHICKEN BROTH

      Cooking chicken and making chicken broth is a two-for-one process. They can be cooked at the same time in one pot. The idea is to add seasonings to the water when cooking chicken

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