[Sca-cooks] Fried apple pies

[Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius]

Also sprach Sue Clemenger:
>Damn, Papa! Those are *so* not on my diet!
>--maire, with a *severe* case of the post-midnight munchies (no, not 
>*that* kind of munchies--my neighbor is the one who does the weed 
>smoking in this house!)
>
>Michael Gunter wrote:
>
>>>These _could_ be single-serving Tartes Tatin, in which case, 
>>>should Gunthar be sucked through the looking-glass or something, 
>>>we could probably figure them out pretty easily.
>>>
>>>Adamantius, proponent of the Tarte Tatin made with thawed, frozen 
>>>piecrust, to produce a product unrecognizable as frozen...
>>
>>
>>That's them. Basically cored, peeled apples with butter, a bit of sugar and
>>cinnamon cooked then put in a rolled out pastry. The pastry is folded over
>>the fruit in an overlapping circle with a hole in the middle.
>>Brush the top with egg and sugar.
>>Bake.
>>Once baked, pour in a thin caramel and let cool.
>>
>>And a decent frozen pie crust works well with it.
>>
>>Gunthar the tease.

The classic Tarte Tatin is even easier, I think, and like the above, 
is something you can reproduce from a description, without needing a 
really detailed recipe. And I have to start my description with 
"basically" also ;-)...

Basically you peel, core and slice or quarter enough cooking apples 
to fill an oven-safe saute pan, like an iron skillet or one of those 
cheap all-mild-steel omelette pans (my fave, BTW). Toss 1/2 to 3/4 
cup sugar into the pan over medium-high heat, and melt and lightly 
caramelize the sugar. Swirl in a pat of unsalted butter, maybe a 
tablespoon or two, then add the apples to the pan. Saute in the 
sugar-butter goo until they become just slightly soft and their 
volume in the pan comes down just a bit (IOW, when the slices "wilt", 
or become soft enough for most of the inter-slice air pockets to 
collapse). Remove pan from flame, and take your pre-rolled pastry 
circle (which can be home-made, but in a pinch a frozen pie shell, or 
one of those frozen circular piecrust disks, thawed before using, 
work quite well, and doesn't have that factory-made look, or the 
classic burnt edges so common to frozen pies), and lay it on top of 
the apples in the pan, tucking the edges in and down around the 
apples. Kind of like an upside-down cake...

Bake in your preheated 375-400-degree F oven until the pastry is done 
(maybe 15-20 minutes). Remove from the oven, and after a minute or 
two, using potholders and a large serving plate as a support and 
final serving container, flip the tart over onto your plate.

Very randomly rustic visual effect... Serve in wedges with whipped 
cream or creme fraiche. This also works really well with pears.

Adamantius