Apple Pie: A Herald of Feasts to Come

At our house, the best dishes are the ones prepared for the Holidays.  Starting in September, my mother and I start cooking up little teasers for the feasts to come: oatmeal cookies, orange or lemon chiffon cake with dark chocolate icing, and Russian salad.

But the dish that really serves as the harbinger of upcoming goodness in our home is streusel-topped apple pie.  Most people find it unusual that a Filipino family would actually find itself baking apple pies for the last few months of the year because traditional kakanin  or store-bought treats like food-for-the-gods and brownies are what usually grace local tables.  Along with ube cake, apple pie ala mode was my maternal grandfather’s favorite dessert.  Later on, when I finally mastered the art of baking these cinnamon-infused goodies, my own father developed a taste for them and looks forward to the baking of a new batch.  On a sadder note, however, apple pies are one of the reasons why my paternal grandmother and I do not get along.  But that is a story for another day… 

Our family’s take on this classic dessert involves a flaky crust filled to the brim with apples lavishly coated with cinnamon sugar.  A buttery crumb topping is generously sprinkled onto the whole confection before it goes into the oven.  Sweet and simple, really.

It’s a lovely dessert when served either hot or cold.  Warm slices are garnished with a generous scoop of very good vanilla ice cream and, perhaps, a good splodge of caramel cream.  (Use the caramel cream recipe I used in my banoffee torte; just skip the chilling and use straight from the stovetop.)  Served cold straight out of the fridge, it also makes for a lovely breakfast when paired with a hot, milky mug of cardamom chai.

Apple Pie
For the Crust:

• 1-1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/4 teaspoon fine salt
• 1/4 cup vegetable shortening
• 1/4 cup iced water

For the Filling:

• 6 medium apples, cored, peeled, and sliced
• 3/4 cup brown sugar
• 1-1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 1 tablespoon all-purpose flour

For the Streusel:

• 1/4 cup flour
• 1/4 cup brown sugar
• 1/4 cup butter

Grease a nine-inch pie plate; set aside.  Cut the shortening and salt into the flour with two knives or a pastry blender until the mixture has the appearance of fine breadcrumbs.  Add the iced water by tablespoons, tossing the mixture with a fork until well combined.  Form dough into a ball and set upon a floured surface.  Roll out the dough to approximately 1/2 inch thickness and line the prepared pan.  Set aside. 

Pre-heat oven to 375 degrees / Gas Mark 5.

Make the streusel by cutting together the flour, brown sugar, and butter till the mixture also resembles breadcrumbs.  Set aside.

Toss the sliced apples with the brown sugar, cinnamon, and flour.  Leave to rest for about five minutes.

Dump the filling into the prepared crust, evenly spreading it over the surface.  Spoon any juices left in the mixing bowl onto the fruit.  Cover with the streusel.

Bake for 40 – 45 minutes.  Makes 1 pie.

Notes from the Biscotteria Test Kitchen: Pandan Biscotti

“Holy tokwa!” my ecclesiastical kid brother texted after opening the box I sent him last Friday. “It’s green!”

Yes, dear readers, there is nothing wrong with your monitors. The biscotti at the top of this post is green.

I’ve given it the name La Provinciana and it’s a pandan (screwpine) -flavored cookie that evokes the scents and flavors of the Philippine countryside in summer. The slightly floral scent and flavor of the pandan goes well with toasted cashews and the crunch of puffed rice.

As for the color… Since it’s quite a pain to steep pandan leaves for hours when all you need is a couple teaspoons for flavoring, I used Ferna Flavocol in Pandan. “Brilliant” green is an understatement; more like “completely and utterly funkadelic” green!

It’s Lent. What’s On Your Dinner Table?

I remember a part from Fr. Andrew M. Greeley’s novel Lord of the Dance wherein the Farrells are sitting down to a Good Friday dinner of baked whitefish and potatoes paired with a dry white wine. Now, this Holy Week repast may do for well-to-do Irish-American families, but you can just imagine the howls of protest if someone is foolhardy enough to serve such a meal in a Filipino household. It’s bad enough that your blood sugar is down from a day’s fasting, but to be expected to break your fast with a bland meal? You’ve got to be kidding!

My siblings and I were fortunate to grow up in a home where meals have never been bland or insipid even on Ember Days (the name traditionally given to Ash Wednesday, all Fridays of Lent, and Good Friday, all of which call for fasting and abstinence). There would be sarciado (a fried fish smothered in a mild tomato salsa; known as cardillo in the provinces of Rizal and Laguna), lumpiang isda (fried spring rolls filled with sauteed milkfish), and pinaputok na tilapia (tilapia stuffed with ginger, onions, and tomatoes, wrapped in banana leaves, and deep fried). Sometimes, a pork-free pinakbet flavored with bagoong isda will accompany these dishes; other times, suam – a soup made with corn and squash blossoms flavored with smoked fish – will be served as an appetizer. Fish or prawn sinigang was also an option, along with crisp-fried daing na bangus (salt-dried milkfish).

For those of you who want to serve something different from the usual fried-fish / steamed-fish / fish-in-soup menus, here are a few ideas from several popular local restaurants for your Lenten menu:

The Mushrooms are in the Bread

To relieve myself of stress during the Holiday season, I opted to whip up a fresh loaf of bread for New Year’s.  Unfortunately, this in itself posed a few issues with my next-of-kin.  Mom wanted cinnamon rolls and my sister wanted me to bake a loaf of .  Unfortunately, when I looked in the fridge, there were far too many sweets for comfort.  I decided, instead, to bake a savory loaf that would go well with the other dishes on the New Year’s Eve menu.

This, dear SybDive readers is my mushroom and onion bread.

Paella: The Main Course of My Memories

Some Filipino families serve pancit during the Holiday season, while others have spaghetti with a sweetish meat sauce and cheese on their tables.  My family, however, shies away from noodles at Christmas and New Year.  For as long as I can remember, the main course on our festive table has always been rice – specifically, the magnificent paella Valenciana , the recipe for which was handed down to my mother by my grandmother.