Fried Pies
Saleable in the baker's shops. Make them the same as directed for apple turnovers with dough not very rich. Use milk to mix up with and the dough will have a better brown color than with water. Wet the edges with egg and water to make them stick and keep out the grease. Drop the turnovers into a pan of hot lard and fry them brown like faitters or doughnuts.
A bakery-counter item rather than a dessert course: a short pastry turnover sealed with egg wash and deep-fried instead of baked. The instructions assume you already have the author's apple turnover dough and filling in hand.
- The hinge: seal the edges properlyThe egg-and-water wash is what keeps the seam shut once the pie hits the fat. A pie that opens in the lard sheds filling, foams the fat and soaks through. Press the edges firmly, crimp them, and chill the assembled pies before frying so the fat in the dough is firm.
- "Dough not very rich"Means less butter or lard in proportion to flour than a baked pie crust would carry. A very short dough tears at the seam and drinks fat; a leaner, slightly tougher dough holds up to frying.
- Milk instead of waterCorrect for the reason given. Milk sugars and proteins brown in the fat, giving the deep colour bakers wanted in the shop window. It also makes the crust a shade softer.
- "Faitters"Almost certainly fritters, spelled by ear or misprinted. The comparison is to the colour and handling of fritters and doughnuts, not to their batter.
- Fat temperatureThe book says only "hot lard." Aim for 360-375F. Below that the crust absorbs grease before it sets; much above it and the outside colours long before the filling is hot. Lard works well here, but any neutral fat with a high smoke point does the same job.
- The filling must be thick and coolLoose or hot fruit filling turns to steam, builds pressure and bursts the seam. Cook the apples down until they mound on a spoon and let them go completely cold before filling.
- Frying and drainingTwo to four minutes a side depending on size, turning once. Drain on a rack rather than paper so the underside does not steam soft.
- YieldNot stated, since a shop batch was scaled to demand. The quantity depends entirely on the apple turnover dough the recipe points back to.
Fried pies belong to the commercial side of this book -- the note "saleable in the baker's shops" marks it as a product to sell over the counter, not a dish for a dinner menu. Frying rather than baking suited a shop kitchen: no oven space was tied up, the pies coloured in minutes, and they were sturdy enough to be eaten out of hand by a customer on the street. Hand pies of this kind have a long life on both sides of the Atlantic, from Cornish and Kentish turnovers to the dried-apple fried pies still associated with the American South, where fruit put by in autumn was stewed and folded into pastry through the winter.