Home › Flour Mixtures Continued: Pastry and Pies › Flour Mixtures Continued: Pastry and Pies: Rhubarb
Flour Mixtures Continued: Pastry and Pies: Rhubarb
RHUBARB PIE 2 cups of sliced rhubarb 2 tablespoonfuls of flour 1 egg 1/2 teaspoonful of salt 1 1/4 cups of sugar 2 teaspoonfuls of butter Beat the egg; beat in the sugar, flour and salt and turn into the plate lined with pastry; add the butter in bits, here and there, cover and finish as an ordinary apple pie. Rhubarb canned in cold water may be used instead of fresh rhubarb.
RHUBARB PIE (Red Lion Inn, Stockbridge) 1 cup of sliced rhubarb 1/4 teaspoonful of salt 1 egg 2 teaspoonfuls of butter 1 cup of sugar A grating of nutmeg 2 common crackers, rolled fine Beat the egg, add the sugar, salt, rolled crackers and rhubarb. Turn into the plate lined with crust. Put in the bits of butter. Cut the pastry rolled for the upper crust into bands three-fourths an inch wide, and brush over the edge of the under crust with cold water; lay the bands across the filling parallel, one to another, then lay bands across the filling at right angles to these, lattice fashion. Cut all at the edge of the under paste and press them upon it. Bake about half an hour.
RHUBARB PIE, No. 3 Peel the rhubarb and cut it in slices; cover with boiling water, set over the fire and bring quickly to the boiling point. As soon as the rhubarb changes color and before it loses its shape, drain and press out all of the liquid. Over the rhubarb sprinkle a cup of sugar, sifted with three tablespoonfuls of flour and one-fourth a teaspoonful of salt. Add a tablespoonful of lemon juice or a grating of orange rind; mix and turn into a plate lined with pastry; finish with bands of pastry. Bake about half an hour. MOCK MINCE PIE 2 common crackers, rolled fine 1/2 cup of raisins, seeded and 3/4 cup of sugar chopped 1/2 cup of molasses 1/4 cup of butter 1/4 cup of liquid from sweet 1/4 teaspoonful of salt pickle jar or 1 egg, well beaten 1/4 cup of lemon juice Mix all the ingredients together and turn into a plate lined with pastry; cover with paste and bake as an apple pie. Spices as cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg and mace may be added if desired. A teaspoonful of mixed spice will suffice. LEMON PIE 3 tablespoonfuls of cornstarch 1/2 teaspoonful of salt 4 tablespoonfuls of cold water 1 cup of boiling water 1 cup of sugar Juice of 1 lemon 2 tablespoonfuls of butter Grated rind, if desired Stir the cornstarch and salt with the cold water; pour on the boiling water and stir and cook until the mixture boils; add the sugar, butter and lemon juice, also grated rind, if it is to be used. Let the mixture stand while a plate is lined and the upper crust is rolled out and made ready. Turn the mixture into the lined plate, brush the edge of the paste with cold water, set the upper paste in place, finish and bake as an apple pie. Lemon rind when eaten often produces flatulency; in such case, omit it. MINCE MEAT FOR ONE PIE 3/4 cup chopped beef (roast or 1/4 cup of syrup from sweet steak) pickle jar 1 cup of chopped apple 1/2 teaspoonful salt 1/4 cup of chopped suet or 1/2 teaspoonful mace 3 tablespoonfuls of butter Grating of nutmeg 2/3 cup of sugar 1/8 teaspoonful of cloves 1/2 cup of molasses 1/4 teaspoonful of cinnamon Grated rind and juice of 1 1/3 cup of raisins (Sultanas lemon or preferred) Mix all together, turn into a plate lined with pastry and cover as an apple pie. Bake nearly an hour. Less spice may be used, or two or three tablespoonfuls of "left over" jelly may be added.
SOUR CREAM PIE 1 cup of chopped apple 1/2 cup of sour milk 1 cup of stoned raisins 1/4 teaspoonful, each, of cinnamon, 1 cup of sugar nutmeg and cloves 1/2 cup of sour cream 1/2 teaspoonful of salt Peel the apples before chopping and chop the raisins; add the other ingredients, mix thoroughly and bake between two layers of pastry. CUSTARD PIE We have not seen plates of a depth suitable for custard and other similar pies in small size, thus give the proportions for a pie of ordinary size. Take rather more than half of the crust required for one pie; roll it into a round sheet that will come three-fourths of an inch beyond the edge of the plate; lay it upon the plate evenly, then fold the edge over to meet the plate all around the plate. Flute this double fold of paste with the thumb and finger and press each "fluting" down upon the edge of the plate. In putting the crust upon the plate lift it here and there, where needed, to let out the air below. This should be done with all pies, but is particularly necessary with custard pies. Also, with the thumb and fore-finger held together, press the paste upon the bottom of the plate throughout the whole extent and, also, around the edge of the plate close to the bottom, that no large bubble of air may be left to expand and displace the custard while it is baking. Turn the filling into the prepared crust and let bake in a moderate oven nearly an hour. An electric oven is by far the best oven in which to bake a custard or squash pie. For the filling beat four eggs; add half a teaspoonful of salt and three-fourths a cup of sugar and beat again, then gradually beat in three cups of milk. When the pie feels firm to the touch at the center, remove from the oven and grate over it a little nutmeg. Chill before serving.
SQUASH PIE 1/4 cup of butter 1 egg and yolk of another 3/4 cup of sugar 1 cup of cooked-and-sifted 1/2 teaspoonful of salt squash 1/2 teaspoonful of ground mace 1 cup of rich milk Cream the butter and beat in half the sugar; beat the egg and beat in the other half of the sugar, then beat the two mixtures together; add the other ingredients and mix again. Bake in a plate lined as for a custard pie. SQUASH PIE, DELAWARE STYLE 1 cup of cooked-and-sifted 1 egg, well beaten squash 1/4 cup of cream 1/2 teaspoonful of salt 3/4 cup of breakfast cocoa made 1/2 teaspoonful of cinnamon with milk 3/4 cup of sugar Mix the ingredients and bake until firm in the center in a plate lined with pastry as for a custard pie.
A cluster of small pies from a book written for two people, so the plates are smaller than modern standard and several of the fillings are startlingly sweet by current taste. A few of the ingredients no longer exist under those names.
- Pie sizeThese proportions are for a plate smaller than the modern standard, so scale the filling up for a 9-inch plate. The author says as much when she gives the custard pie in "ordinary size" because small deep plates were not to be had.
- Oven heatThe book gives no temperatures. "Bake as an ordinary apple pie" implies a hot start to set the bottom crust and a moderate finish; the custard pie is directed to a "moderate oven" for nearly an hour. The doneness test given -- firm to the touch at the center -- is the right one.
- Common crackersNew England common crackers were dry, hard, hollow-centered biscuits used as a thickener as often as a bread. Two rolled fine come to somewhere around a third to a half cup of crumbs; unsalted saltines or plain oyster crackers give a similar effect, and the salt in the recipe should then be cut slightly.
- Sugar1 1/4 cups of sugar to 2 cups of rhubarb was normal for a period that treated the stalk as barely edible without it. Two-thirds of a cup is enough for most palates now, though rhubarb is genuinely acid and going much below that gives a sharp pie.
- Rhubarb No. 3 gives no quantityThe third version names no amount of rhubarb at all; work from the first recipe and use about 2 cups sliced, since the cup of sugar and three tablespoons of flour are scaled to roughly that. Blanching and pressing out the liquid is the real point of this version and it does produce the least watery of the three.
- Rhubarb leavesOnly the stalks are food. The leaf blades contain oxalic acid in quantities that make them unfit to eat, and they should be cut off and discarded before anything else happens.
- Sour milk and sour creamThese meant milk left to clabber naturally. Use cultured buttermilk and commercial sour cream; do not attempt it by leaving pasteurized milk out, which spoils rather than sours.
- Sweet pickle liquidThe syrup from a jar of sweet pickles carries the spice and vinegar that a mince pie wants without opening a bottle of brandy. Bread-and-butter pickle brine is the closest current equivalent; the quarter cup of lemon juice given as an alternative works but is thinner in flavor.
- Squash, not pumpkin pie"Cooked-and-sifted squash" is a dense winter squash, boiled or baked and pressed through a sieve. Canned pumpkin substitutes directly, but drain it if it is wet or the custard will not set cleanly. The Delaware version, with cocoa made with milk in place of most of the liquid, is worth trying as written.
Rhubarb was called pie plant in nineteenth-century America for the obvious reason: it came up in April, months before any tree fruit, and pie was what it was for. Three versions in a row here show a cook working at a real problem, which is that rhubarb gives off a great deal of liquid, and the answers offered are egg and flour, rolled crackers, and parboiling with the juice pressed out. The second is credited to the Red Lion Inn at Stockbridge, Massachusetts, a Berkshires hotel that was already long established when this book appeared and is still in business. The aside that lemon rind "often produces flatulency" is a reminder that domestic-science writing of these years moved freely between the kitchen and amateur physiology, and that the author expected her readers to want that sort of guidance alongside the proportions.