One Thing I Ate: Extra-flaky honey nut hand pies feat. Thanksgiving leftovers
Click for a pie dough flakier than your ex.
Hello and welcome back to Five Things I Ate! This week, we make the most of festive leftovers. Read past posts here, and please follow my Instagram, @fivethingsiate.
Editor’s note: As longtime readers of the ‘letter may know, Thanksgiving is my favorite/only holiday. Unfortunately, this year my family had to deal with an unexpected family illness and was not able to gather. So here’s a recipe making the most of what I have in the fridge. And here is a selection of Thanksgiving content from the archives, including this sappy essay I wrote like a decade ago, a truncated menu, and my favorite festive dessert bars.
The key to being flaky is to not try too hard. Everyone intuitively knows this, but some of us were not built to try less. In fact, for people like me, trying a little less hard takes such a gargantuan amount of effort to reel my natural state of obsession in that I find it truly exhausting.
But if you want flaky – I mean truly flaky, shatter-in-your-mouth, “sou” pastry, you really have to try a little less. I know it’ll pain your heart, but really, try a little less when you make your pie dough. Leave those clumps of butter un-smashed. Float a chunk of ice in your dough water, and don’t bother to fish it out. The less you work, the flakier your results will be.
But if trying less is not in your personality, here’s a translation on how to try more to try less, which is what I did:
Watch a 1h20min YouTube video on my favorite pie instructor, Erin Jeanne McDowell, on how to make pie crust.
Buy the corresponding book, the Book on Pie, which is the best/only physical cookbook I use repeatedly in my life, and read the chapter on making piecrust.
Also read the Food52 article on the same recipe for all butter pie dough.
Now you are ready to try less!
Look at that flake!
Extra-flaky honeynut hand pies (with cranberry sauce, baby spinach, parmesan and mozzarella cheese)
Makes approximately 6 hand pies.
This recipe seems very time consuming but what it really is is actually a rough blueprint for an idea of a recipe. Here, I used Thanksgiving leftovers (roasted honey nut squash, a red onion lying in my veggie drawer, some cheese, a handful of baby spinach, and a few spoonfuls of cranberry sauce) to make a sweet-salty-savory filling. But you can really use any combo of sweet/starchy (try butternut, sweet potato, or another root veggie), alliums (onion, garlic, scallion), herbs, and cheese.
For the dough (prepare 1/2 hour up to 1 night before in advance):
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour, sifted (150 g)
Pinch salt
8 tablespoons butter, cut into 1/2-inch cubes (113 g)
1/4 cup ice water, or more as needed (56 g)
Mix flour and salt. Toss in butter cubes. Smash them with your fingers till mostly smashed. Add ice water just till moist. Don’t try too hard. Pie dough can smell fear. Stop. Shape into disc. Wrap in plastic. Refrigerate.
For the squash:
1 mini honey nut squash, roasted OR 1-2 cups butternut squash, cubed and roasted at 400F for about 25-30 minutes, who knows really, don’t try too hard, stop when it smells good. Actually do this the day before or before you make the pie dough so it’s cool. Sorry I forgot to tell you. Just use leftovers. Don’t try too hard.
For the filling:
Sautee in 1-2 tbs salted butter:
½ red onion, diced
Thyme, sage
Crushed garlic, 1 or more cloves
Throw in:
a cup or so of baby spinach, and let it wilt.
Scoop out the cooled roasted honeynut, or butternut cubes, and stir it in.
Also stir in:
2 tbs leftover cranberry sauce
2 tbs parmesan
¼ cup mozzarella
Don’t stir too much. Season to taste with salt and pepper.
To bake:
Preheat the oven to … 375, probably.
Dust your surface with flour.
Cut the dough into 6 pieces.
Roll each into a rectangle.
Add two tablespoons of filling.
Fold over.
Crimp edge shut with a fork.
Brush with egg wash (1 egg + a bit of water, beaten).
Stab with a fork to let it vent.
Place on parchment lined baking sheet.
Repeat 6x.
Bake 20-25 min in the oven until golden brown but NOT burnt. Try a little hard lol so they don’t get completely incinerated.
Cool a little and eat while warm.
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