Fresh Fig Pie

 

Juicy and deeply flavorful, fresh fig pie can be made with small figs from a Southern fig bush, or with brown turkey or mission figs

It’s too late for figs here in Piedmont North Carolina, the late summer season having passed us by — though with warmer than usual days popping up now and then, it can be difficult to tell. They come and go quickly, and by the time we’ve eaten them fresh off the tree, or wrapped in proscuitto or chopped up and mixed with toasted cumin for a delicious salsa, or canned a few batches as fig preserves or fig jam, they are gone for the year. Fresh market still had some beautiful deep purple mission figs and greenish-reddish-brownish brown turkey figs, and chopped up coarsely and tossed with sugar, flour, a bit of cinnamon, a splash of lemon juice and bits of butter, they made a fine pie. The color and flavor remind me of the muscadine pie from last week, but they have their own figginess and distinctive quality as well. Just wonderful as is, but a scoop of vanilla ice cream or plump cloud of whipped cream would stretch the juicy filling just a tad bit further and would not be turned down around here.  To prepare the figs, cut away and discard the stem end and a very thin slice of the blossom end; then halve them lengthwise and crosswise to make generous chunks.

Ripe brown turkey figs, soon to be stemmed and chopped coarsely for fresh fig pie

Nancie’s Fresh Fig Pie

Pastry for a double-crust pie

1/2 cup sugar

2 tablespoons flour

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon salt

4 cups very coarsely chopped fresh ripe figs (about 1 1/2 pounds)

2 tablespoons lemon juice, or cider vinegar or white vinegar

1 tablespoon cold butter, cut into bits

Heat the oven to 375 degress F. In a small bowl, combine the sugar, flour, cinnamon and salt, and stir with a fork to mix well. In a medium bowl, combine the figs and the sugar-flour mixture, and toss gently to mix them evenly. Pour the figs into the piecrust, and mound them up toward the center in to a little pile. Pour lemon juice over the figs, and dot with the bits of butter. Cover with the top crust and press the sides together to seal them well. Trim and fold the edges under firmly; then crimp to seal the pie, or press the edges down with the tines of a fork to seal them and make a pretty design. Use a fork or a knife to make steam vents so that steam and juicy filling can escape as the pie cooks. Place in the 375 degree F oven and bake for 10 minutes. Reduce the heat to 350 degrees and bake until the filling is thick and juicy and bubbling out around the top of the pie, and until the crust is golden brown, 45 to 50 minutes. Transfer to a cooling rack or a folded kitchen towel and cool to room temperature.

Copyright Nancie McDermott, October 2010, all rights reserved.

Martha Hall Foose’s Sweet Tea Pie

Martha Hall Foose’s Sweet Tea Lemon Chess Pie

My friend Martha Hall Foose is a chef, author, teacher and storyteller. She combines homegrown Mississippi Delta smarts with professional culinary education, work in France, and world travels, and her writing and teaching open windows into the kitchen for her readers and students. Her book, Screen Doors and Sweet Tea: Recipes and Tales from a Southern Cook won the prestigious James Beard Award for 2009, and it belongs on your bookshelf and kitchen counter if you love Southern cooking or just want to know more about it from a brilliant writer-cook. Martha’s Sweet Tea Lemon Chess Pie is luxuriously rich, perfectly paired with her cream cheese pastry, which is simply patted into the pie pan with no need to roll it out. You’ll find it in my pie book, and also in the just published treasury, The Southern Foodways Alliance Community Cookbook, because she is so generous and her pie is so good.

Even those who haven’t taken a liking to sweet iced tea can usually get behind a generous slice of Ms. Foose’s famous Sweet Tea Pie.

Martha Hall Foose’s Sweet Tea Lemon Chess Pie

Adapted from The Southern Foodways Alliance Community Cookbook

Cream Cheese Piecrust

3 ounces cream cheese, at room temperature

1/2 cup (1/4 pound, 1 stick) unsalted butter, at room temperature

1 1/4 cups unbleached all-purpose flour

For the piecrust, combine cream cheese and butter in a medium bowl and beat with an electric mixer until they are evenly combined. Add the flour and continue beating a low speed just until the dough comes together into a ball. Press and pat the dough into a pie pan, building up a thicker top edge of the crust. Set the piecrust in the freezer while you prepare the filling.

 

Sweet Tea Lemon Chess Filling

3/4 cup warm, freshly brewed strong orange pekoe tea

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice

1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar

2 cups sugar

2 tablespoons unbleached all-purpose flour

2 teaspoons cornmeal

Zest of one lemon

1 cup (1/2 pound, 2 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature

8 large egg yolks

 

Heat the oven to 350 degrees F. In a small bowl or pitcher, combine the tea, vanilla, lemon juice and vinegar and stir well. In a medium bowl, combine the sugar, flour, cornmeal, and lemon zest, and stir with a fork to mix them together well.

In a medium bowl, use an electric mixer to beat the butter until it is fluffy. Add the sugar-flour mixture gradually, and continue beating to combine well. Add the egg yolks a few at a time, mixing well each time. Add the tea mixture and beat to combine everything evenly and well. The filling will be soft and liquid, not thick, and may seem curdled, but don’t worry about that.

Pour the filling into the piecrust. Bake until the top and crust are handsomely browned, and the pie is fairly firm throughout, with just a little jiggling in the center, about 50 minutes. Place on a cooling rack or a folded kitchen towel and cool to room temperature. Chill two hours or more before serving.

From  The Southern Foodways Alliance Community Cookbook, Edited by Sara Roahen and John T. Edge; University of Georgia Press, 2010. All rights reserved.