The Only Pie Crust by Alison Roman - GUEST POST by Margaret Winchell

Margaret, my dear friend who I mention frequently on this blog, has generously made and reviewed Alison’s pie crust recipe. Due to my gluten intolerance, there wasn’t a way for me to keep the integrity of this recipe AND eat it. So I asked Margaret, queen of pies, to do the honors. What a TREAT this post is. Margaret knows her pie crust, so listen up….

---

Pie crust recipes are everywhere. Everyone has their own method, and the recipe is more of a shorthand for that method than any kind of unique formula. The key players are flour, butter, salt, and water, with recurring guest stars sugar and vinegar. If you see eggs on the ingredient list, keep looking. If the recipe doesn’t mention keeping things cold, run. And if anyone tells you it’ll always be the same precise proportion of ingredients, give that recipe writer the side eye. Pie crust is about feeling your way through a bunch of decisions about variables, and it’s a little different every time.

Here’s what I like about Alison’s recipe:

• She acknowledges the need for flexibility and restraint. There’s a guideline for how much water you’ll need and advice about how much wiggle room you should allow within that quantity, and she tells you to add less than you think. Smart.

• She specifies that ingredients need to be chilled. Pie crust is a greasy mess when they’re not, so this is critical.

• She has you rest the dough. Any dough involving gluten (so, pie crusts, bread doughs, even cookies) benefits from a rest before rolling. Just like when a person gets worked up, sitting in a cool, quiet room for an hour allows the dough to relax and limber up for the next event. In addition, this gives moisture a chance to distribute itself evenly among all the little bits of flour so you don’t end up with crumbly bits at the perimeter of the dough.

Here’s what I wish Alison did differently:

• Cut the butter smaller. She has you cut it into 1-inch pieces, which just makes a little more work for your hands when you incorporate it into the flour. Hands are hot. Knives are cool. Cutting butter smaller = less warming up of the butter as you rub it in. (Pie math!)

• Get the palms OUTTA there. I don’t understand why Alison tells you to smash the butter between palms and fingertips and later, to knead the dough with your palms. Fingertips stay cool, but palms are hot. Keep! It! Cold! I like to crush the cubes of butter with a motion akin to aggressively rubbing a dog’s ear, tossing the exposed butter in flour every few seconds. (Picked up that tip from my main science dude Alton Brown.) See? ^^^

• Keep the flour-butter mixture in the bowl. WHY do we have to dump it out on the counter? This just means I’m chasing flour and water around the counter as I work. I think keeping it in the bowl makes it easier to toss with your fingertips (see notes on palms, above) and helps the water find its way to the floury bits. I added a little more water than I meant to in making this because it was harder to mix it all together evenly on the counter. 

• Give a clue for when you’ve added enough water. I follow the rule that if you can squeeze a clump of dough in your fingertips and it mostly holds together, you’re done. 

The recipe makes two discs, so one went in my freezer, and I rolled out the other to make a lid for a little skillet pie with some mushrooms and rainbow chard I got at the farmer’s market this morning with a friend (summer, amirite?).

Rolling out the dough was a little tricky. It was a hot Michigan summer day, and the larger chunks of butter that remained got a little soft and stuck to the rolling pin a bit, but the dough sort of fused back together in the oven, hiding a couple cracks in the crust. Using Alison’s skillet mushroom and chicken pie as a guide, I brushed the crust with egg wash and baked it at 425, but not before sprinkling it with some flaky salt for extra crunch.

In the end, the crust had superior flakiness and was very, very buttery. It’s delicious, but I might dial back the butter just a bit for warmer months when I want a lighter meal. Alison goes full throttle on flavor, and the salt was no exception; if I foresee wanting to sprinkle flaky salt on top again, I might reduce the quantity in the dough. All that being said, this is a totally delicious pie crust. I don’t know that I’d call it the only pie crust you’ll ever want, but you could certainly make it so if rich, buttery pie crust is up your alley.

107 AND 108 recipes cooked, 117 to go. This recipe appears in both cookbooks, and thus, it counts for two recipes.

And now, back to Annie for regularly scheduled A&A content!

Torn Plum Browned-Butter Cake by Alison Roman

I’ve loved every single one of Alison’s desserts. But this cake, in a neck-and-neck tie with Alison’s Key Lime Pie, wins the Gold Medal. Impossibly buttery, dense but not heavy, bursting with sweet juicy plums, and sprinkled with crunchy sugar. When it comes to describing food, I try to avoid terms like “guilty pleasure,” but I’m not sure how else to talk about eating this cake. It was so perfectly rich that it felt… sinful? No, heavenly? Let’s go with heavenly. 

Flavor besides, the effort required is minimal. It starts with greasing a 9-inch cake pan. Then, melting butter (there’s a LOT of butter – 1.5 sticks to be exact!) in a small pot until it starts to brown. This took about 6 minutes for me. Then I let it cool. 

In the meantime, I whisked the dry ingredients including powdered sugar, salt, GF All-purpose flour, almond flour, and Xanthan Gum. Then I added and whisked in 5 egg whites and maple syrup, (I was out of honey), until there were no lumps to be found. Once the butter cooled, I folded that into the batter as gently as possible before pouring the batter into the cake pan. 

I loved tearing the plums with my hands instead of using a knife. Call it childish, but playing wtih your food is a lot of fun. I made sure to choose really ripe plums at the store for maximum sweetness and ease of tear. I plopped (yes, plopped) the plum bits onto the batter and sprinkled everything with demerara sugar. The cake baked for 42 minutes, with one rotation at the 20 minute mark. The key to done-ness was the deeply browned edges, which ended up being my favorite part. And oh, it was heavenly. 

106 recipes cooked, 119 to go.

Fancy Citrusy Olives by Alison Roman

This is the third or fourth time I’ve faced the task of writing about olives, but this time, it’s different. This time, I’m different. For 28.2 years of my life, I thought olives were nothing short of repulsive. Then, I made Alison’s Skillet Chicken with Sumac and Olives, and something started to change. I not only liked the briny pop of flavor in that dish, I actually found myself thinking about it afterward. Those reflections led me to make the dish a second time, which led me to order an olive plate at a restaurant a few weeks ago, which led me to ask my mother-in-law, Queen Olive Lover herself, if we could have an olive happy hour on a Sunday afternoon! I have converted, folks. I’m a believer. I like olives. 

Needless to say, my excitement levels for this appetizer were far higher than when I first saw the recipe at the start of the project. The adventure began with halving and thinly slicing both a lemon and a navel orange. The other halves should be saved for juicing. In a small pot, I let the citrus slices, red chile flakes, and grapefruit peel sizzle in some olive oil. This helps the elements release their flavors a bit before the olives join. Once the olives got in there, I turned the heat to the lowest setting and let them hang out for a little under an hour. 

Alison calls for Castelvetrano olives, which are my favorite. Their strong buttery flavor is perhaps their most distinct quality, next to their firmness. I much prefer these to brown or black olives – both of which I’m still working on liking more. I buy these olives at the Whole Foods olive bar because I just pay for what I need. I could get a large jar of them at Costco for a cheaper ounce to dollar ratio, but I know they’d go bad before I could eat them all. 

The olives need to cool to room temperature, which takes about an hour. Then the reserved citrus halves get squeezed over the pot of olives to impart more flavor before plating – citrus peels and all. 

I served this as an appetizer, but also brought it to the dinner table where my guests continued to snack on them throughout the meal and even afterward. To my tastebuds, the orange juice was a bit too strong and sweet, and I missed the olive’s buttery dominance. But my guests seemed to really enjoy this take on olives, and there were hardly any leftovers. Next, I’d like to try a simpler olive recipe that involves rosemary or thyme, or some combination of herbs as the added flavor. If you have a beloved recipe like this, would you send it my way? 

105 recipes cooked, 120 to go.

An All-OutAlison Meal featuring Clam Pasta, Spring Peas, and Citrusy Olives.

Spring Peas with Anchovy, Lemon, and All the Radishes by Alison Roman

I was looking for something bright and fresh to pair with Alison’s Clam Pasta. Seeing that it’s already well into summer, and the timeliness of a “spring” recipe grows less with every passing day, I decided to give this recipe a try. As I suspected, pea tendrils were out of the question (I never saw Whole Foods carry them, and I looked all Spring!). But I was able to use some leftover watercress as a substitute. 

The dressing for this salad is simple. At first glance, it made far less than I thought needed, but it seemed to be just enough once mixed with the vegetables. It includes chopped anchovies, scallions, finely chopped lemon, lemon juice, and salt and pepper. Olive oil gets drizzled over everything just before serving. 

Once the snap peas are halved lengthwise and the radishes finely sliced, they can get familiar with the dressing, sans olive oil, to begin softening and soaking up the flavor. Just before serving, I tossed the fresh tarragon and watercress with the other vegetables and added a tinch more lemon juice with the olive oil to bring it all together. 

I don’t think I’ll ever crave this salad, but I will think of it in the Spring and Summer months when I’m cooking a heavier entree. All of the dinner guests enjoyed it but didn’t ask for seconds. That seems to be the general response to Alison’s salads (other than her “knife-and-fork” ones, which are real crowd-pleasers.) 

104 recipes cooked, 121 to go.

Clam Pasta with Chorizo and Walnuts by Alison Roman

And Alison does it again – completely exceeds my seafood expectations and makes me want to cook whatever crustacean she uses, again and again. I’ve never once thought clams were appetizing. I’ve never once craved them. Even after living in San Francisco for two years – home of the clam chowder & sourdough bread bowl – I avoided clams with gusto. 

With the same trepidation, I approached the seafood counter at Cub to order two pounds of littleneck clams. I watched the soft-spoken man behind the counter take his time adding clams to the scale, wishing I wasn’t spending $18 on the little guys. But alas, all for the project! 

First step was to toast the walnuts, whole, in the oven at 350. I find that it takes about 13 minutes to get a sufficient toasting, as opposed to the 8-10 minutes Alison suggests. Or it could just be my oven. Alison frequently asks for toasted nuts, and I capitalize on this by toasting more than called for so I can eat the rest as a snack! Once the nuts cooled, I could chop them into tiny nibs to make the gremolata. For those curious, Google says that gremolata is “a dressing or garnish made with chopped parsley, garlic, and grated lemon zest, served as an accompaniment to meat or fish.” And that’s exactly what I mixed with the walnuts: parsley, garlic, and lemon zest. 

Thirty minutes before dinnertime, I started cooking the chorizo, a task I always find annoying because it takes far too much effort to break up the meat in the skillet. Remind me next time to crumble it by hand before putting it in the pan. Meanwhile, I cooked the pasta (corn & brown rice pasta) in a pot of unsalted water. Once the chorizo was just browned through, I added another 4 cloves of minced garlic and let them get nicely aromatic. 

Quickly after, the clams were ready to join the fun. I placed the lid on the pan and shook it every 20 seconds for 3 minutes. That’s all it took for the clams to open and warm through. So easy! I added the cooked pasta straight from the pot with tongs, just as Alison suggested, along with over a cup of the pasta water. For the next 5 minutes, Madeline took over and vigorously shook the skillet as the starch in the pasta water formed a sauce that coated the noodles with briny, salty flavor. Many twists of black pepper later, and this was ready to serve. 

And wow, was it delicious. If you’re like me and you find clams intimidating, this is a great introductory recipe that will leave you unafraid and ready for more. It’s not at all fishy tasting, and the pasta and chorizo make it feel like a familiar dinner with a fun twist. The walnuts and parsley added a really nice textural variance, and added yet another flavor element to make things interesting. There were absolutely no leftovers. 

I got my courage to make this dish from 3 daring friends who wanted to try it with me. Sam, Madeline, and Jordan. And as is customary with this crew, this became another All-Out Alison Meal. I’ll deploy the other recipe essays through the rest of this week. 

103 recipes cooked, 122 to go.