Pondering pies, and searching for salad
Do you have any plain folks in your household?
I’m not talking humble lifestyle here, but flavorings. Seasonings. Sauces. Herbs. Spices.
Some of us, and I’m not naming names here, grew up in us-and-them households. There we were, savoring spicy chilis, enjoying the depth herbs added to mom’s beef stew and waiting all year for our grandmother’s sage-laden cornbread dressing. And there they were, carefully drawing boundaries between the green beans, mashed potatoes and meatloaf on their plates and checking their cheese pizza for the suspicious green flecks that meant someone had dared to add oregano.
I’m honestly not sure how we all live together. If you have achieved a culinary truce, please let me know what feats of diplomacy have made this possible.
Taste is, of course, personal, yet many of us live with and cook for others. How we do so is often an exercise in compromise. We pick through our salads, pushing aside the carrots. Or we tolerate a dreaded ingredient by dousing it in another flavor. Ketchup cures all when you are 7.
Bev Brichetto sent her beef and leek deep-dish pie recipe when we were looking for British chicken and leek pie recipes. She acquired the recipe back in the 1980s from a women’s magazine, and the pie is one of her son’s favorite dishes.
While we tend to steer clear of hearty dishes during summer heat waves, every so often the fogs hangs around, and a dish like this seems at home on a Bay Area spring or summer night. This pie also strikes me as a fine peace offering in families where seasoning is an issue.
The ingredient list is so basic; beef, leeks and potatoes seasoned with salt and pepper simmer for a good while on the stove, before you thicken with a little flour and water, drop the lot into a casserole dish, cover with a pie crust and bake. There’s nothing here to worry the seasoning-adverse among us, but the rich gravy and tender, savory ingredients should satisfy the rest.
So, perhaps just this once, I’ll avoid my need to spice things up.
Second helpings
The recent column about the best methods to cook a moist chicken breast prompted Jenni Dayrell to share yet another technique. “My mother-in-law’s method was to beat an egg white until frothy in a shallow bowl or pan, and soak the chicken breast in it before cooking,” Dayrell says. “It works especially well for cut pieces, as for a stir fry, but also for whole breasts. I like to pound the breasts slightly until they are more uniform thickness, soak them in egg white and then pan brown them.” Just 10 to 20 minutes in egg white is sufficient, she says, “or they could languish in the refrigerator for
While we tend to steer clear of hearty dishes during summer heat waves, every so often the fogs hangs around, and a dish like this seems at home on a Bay Area spring or summer night. This pie also strikes me as a fine peace offering in families where seasoning is an issue.
an hour or so in the egg white.”
I hate to think just what is languishing in my refrigerator at this moment.
Request line
George Powles hopes Plates readers can help with his hankering for Walla Walla onions. He’s looking for a source in Livermore or elsewhere in the East Bay. While you’re at it, tell us your favorite way to eat a sweet onion. “Many years ago, while traveling through Washington, we bought a case of these delicious onions,” Powles says. “Much better and sweeter than the Vidalia.”
Lisa Scott-Ponce wants your secrets to the perfect salad dressing. “After making my own dressings from scratch, I can hardly bear to have the one from the store,” she says. “I have a wonderful blue cheese, also a vinaigrette with Dijon mustard, but I’d like to see what other salad dressings people really like.” Scott-Ponce would like a recipe for a vinaigrette that doesn’t use mustard. Along with your recipes, please share your best techniques for balancing the flavors in dressings, your preferred ingredients or brands and your suggestions for storing your homemade dressings. Do you have a preferred container? How long do you keep your homemade dressings?