Buttermilk pie

A year ago, a very good friend told me that he wanted a buttermilk pie for Thanksgiving. He had always enjoyed them as a child, but hadn't had one in years. So I made one to take to his family in 2018. He said that it reminded him of the buttermilk pies of his youth.

This year, we were with some other friends and again, I took a buttermilk pie, and again it was very well received. So, with thanks to Stella Parks (aka Bravetart) and Debbie Lang-Caldwell here's what I did.

Of course, I made the crust - but I could have bought one. I so like the easy crust that Bravetart has in her book and here. I strongly recommend that you go the serious eats site and follow her recipe and technique.

I also did something a little unconventional - I didn't fully blind bake the crust. I gave it a start, but knowing how long the pie would bake, I didn't want to risk the edges of the crust burning. The filling recipe (below) calls for an unbaked crust, but that did leave a bit of a soggy bottom. And we all know that soggy bottoms are quite undesirable. So I compromised and blind baked the crust for 20 minutes.

And most approaches don't call for browned butter, but I have recently found that browning the butter first adds some extra flavor depth.

Ingredients - Filling

1/2 cup butter (browned)

3 eggs

1 1/2 cups granulated sugar

1 cup buttermilk

3T Flour

1t Vanilla

1/4 t nutmeg finely grated

Method

Heat the oven to 400F. Brown the butter carefully over medium heat and allow to cool. Meanwhile in a stand mixer combine the eggs and sugar, and then add the buttermilk and browned butter, mix gently and add the flour, vanilla and nutmeg.

Pour into the 9" shell and bake for 10 minutes at 400F. Reduce the heat to 350F and bake for a further 40 or so minutes - until a skewer comes out clean. I recommend checking after around 35 minutes to make sure you don't overbake.

Allow to cool and serve at room temperature. 

This will keep for 3 or 4 days (maybe longer, but I have never had one that survived that long)

Coleslaw with buttermilk dressing

Now that we make all of our butter, we are often left with buttermilk to spare. Because we culture the butter, the buttermilk has a bit of a tang. Ideal for coleslaw we thought. And we were right.

Ingredients - Dressing

1/2 cup cultured buttermilk

1/2 cup mayonnaise 

1/4 cup pickle juice

1 t hot sauce

2T cider vinegar

2T spicy brown mustard

salt/pepper to taste

Ingredients - Slaw

1 head green cabbage chopped into small pieces.

1/2 medium yellow onion, minced finely

3 large carrots, peeled and grated

Method

Make the dressing by whisking together all the ingredients. Combine the cabbage, carrot and onion, add the dressing and toss.

Refrigerate for a couple of hours to allow the flavors to blend.

Butter

During the evening of the first of the big (fortunately not everything in Texas is bigger) earthquakes in the Dallas area, we were having dinner with some friends at FT33. Matt McAllister dropped by the table and asked how we liked the butter. It was very good, very much in the European cultured style. He mentioned that it was made in house. Of course that conversation provided the inspiration to go off and make some. Madame was away for a bit, so that seemed like the ideal time. I wanted to make sure that I had time to find a cleaning crew if it went badly. I cultured the cream using some store bought creme fraiche, but didn't culture it for long enough. The 1 quart of cream, 4 oz. of creme fraiche yielded 21 oz of butter.

Ingredients

1 Quart (US quart - 32 oz, 4 cups....) heavy whipping cream

4 oz creme fraiche

3/4 t kosher salt

Method

Stir together the cream and creme fraiche. Leave in a warm place for 24 - 36 hours until the desired level of tanginess is reached. Note, I was too impatient, and the place wasn't warm enough.

Refrigerate the cream mixture until ready to make the butter.

Chill the bowl of a stand mixer. 

Pour the cream into the mixer bowl, and beat with the regular mixing paddle (not the whisk) on a medium slow speed. The cream will go through stages. After a few minutes it will have increased in volume and then thickened to the texture of whipped cream. That took about 1/2 the time - about 10 minutes. (Note that whisking cream for whipping is a much faster process). The cream volume then decreases and the cream becomes the texture of icing. All of a sudden, the cream separates into a thick fatty substance (proto-butter) and a milky liquid (traditional buttermilk). At that point the mixture sloshes about in the bowl. The buttermilk has a tendency to want to jump out of the bowl. The solids + paddle + buttermilk give much opportunity for mess making.

When the butter has reached that stage, transfer it to a fine mesh strainer, lined with 4 layers of cheesecloth. Allow the buttermilk to drain. Squeeze the solids to force more liquid out.

Rinse the solids with a lot of water (while in the cheesecloth, but don't dilute the buttermilk). Turn the butter onto a cold counter, knead it a bit by hand (it didn't show signs of melting). Flatten it, ad the salt and then knead for longer to incorporate the salt.

Form a log in parchment paper, place the log inside a plastic sealable bag and refrigerate.  

I drank the buttermilk immediately. It was fantastic. Not that acidic, slightly off flavor and disgusting texture of the stuff in a green carton.

Two in a bowl

We did a dinner from some very close friends on Friday the 6th. This was part of the cunning master plan to get them to move back here after they had been in the Arizona wilderness for 6 years.  I just hope it worked.
The first course was a pair of chilled soups (it was, after all really hot that day). One of the soups was the green goddess soup that we did a couple of years back. The other was a chilled cucumber soup whose recipe we weasled out of our next door neighbors. Of course the cucumber soup wasn't identical to the one they gave us, but it was pretty close - and tasted delicious. Why 2 in a bowl? Because when we poured the soups, we poured them at the same time so they divided the bowls in half.

Ingredients - cucumber soup

3 medium cucumbers, peeled, seeded and chopped coarsely

1 cup buttermilk

8 oz sour cream (full fat)

3 oz cream cheese (full fat)

3 small hot chile peppers - minced finely (red peppers, to taste. Because of all the dairy you may need more)

some finely chopped dill

salt/pepper to taste

Method

Place the cucumbers, buttermilk, sour cream, cream cheese and chile peppers into the blender and blend for a couple of minutes - until very smooth indeed. Note the blender does a better job than the food processor. Adjust the heat by blending in more chiles if desired. Adjust the seasoning. Chill for at least an hour - preferably 2 in the refrigerator.

Just before serving, stir in finely chopped dill. Serve in ice cold bowls.