[Sca-cooks] just a note from Turkey Day-

[Laura C. Minnick]

At 07:41 PM 12/3/2005, you wrote:
>Could you post your pumpkin pie recipe including the amount of saffron used?

Oooohh... you would have to ask...

Have to preface this: A lot of the holiday cooking I do like my grandma- 
from the seat of the pants, inexact, till it looks/tastes 'right'. When I 
came across period recipes, I recognized this sort of method when I came 
across the frequent 'cook it till it be ynough'. So really all I can give 
you is a guideline of sorts.

To start, I used fresh pumpkin. Cut the pumpkin into chucks about the size 
of an outstretched hand, with the strings and seeds taken out. I baked it 
somewhere around 350 until I could put a fork in easily. (No clue how long- 
I was doing several things at once.) Took it out, let it set until cool. 
Then I pulled the peel off (it comes off pretty easily after it's baked), 
and ran it through the food processor until it was smooth. Then- and this 
is the important part- I lined a colander with cheesecloth, dumped the 
pumpkin slurry in, bundled up the cheesecloth, set the colander into a 
large bowl, and set it to drain overnight. The next day there was a nice 
colander full of pumpkin with the texture very like what comes in the can 
(and no watery pies!). (And no, plain pumpkin juice is pretty icky. I'd 
like to know what the house elves at Hogwarts do to it!)

For the pies themselves... hmm. For one pie I used about 2 1/2 cups of 
pumpkin, a good sized handful of dark brown sugar (maybe 2/3 cup packed?), 
a good-sized 'glug' of molasses (uh, maybe 1/4 cup), 2 eggs, and about a 
cup of heavy cream. I beat the eggs until they were frothy, then stirred 
the rest in.

For the spices I used cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, mace, allspice, cloves, and 
black pepper. The salt was a little less than a teaspoon- I ground the 
saffron (for one pie a loose bunch of threads about the size of a kidney 
bean) in the mortar with the salt, until the threads were all broken up and 
the salt was pink. Beat all of the spices in to the pumpkin mix (it should 
make a nice, thick, dark orange glop), and poured it all into a pie shell. 
Baked at about 375 for near an hour. Till it be ynow. :-)

'Lainie
___________________________________________________________________________
"No people can be great who have ceased to be virtuous."
Samuel Johnson: An Introduction To The Political State of Great Britain