187. Chilled Sour Cherry Soup (p. 821)

When I made the Sour Cherry Crostata for the Fourth of July, I felt bad that my wife couldn't eat it because of the flour and butter. I decided to make it up to her by making this recipe* for Chilled Sour Cherry Soup so that she could enjoy all of the great cherry flavor without any of that pesky dairy and gluten.

The whole idea of this dish is a bit strange. First, it's a cold soup, which some people find unusual. But even more unusual is that it's a sweet dessert soup. That's something you don't come across every day. But you know what? It was actually pretty good.

First, I brought some water, sugar, lemon zest and cinnamon to a boil, stirring it until the sugar dissolved. Next I added some frozen sour cherries and boiled the mixture for a few minutes more. Meanwhile, I whisked some cornstarch with some cold water. I stirred the cornstarch mixture into the cherry mixture and boiled it for a final few minutes. I took the soup off the heat and allowed it to cool to room temperature before putting it in the refrigerator to chill.

I served the cold soup in small bowls after dinner. The Book says to garnish the soup with a drizzle of sour cream mixed with heavy cream. I skipped this step because I was making this dessert dairy-free.

At first taste, I wasn't sure what to make of this soup. It tastes a lot like cherry pie filling, and that's kind of strange. It's a bit thinner than ordinary pie filling, and the lemon zest and cinnamon make it a bit zippier. As I ate it, though (and as I ate the leftovers the next couple of nights), the soup started to grow on me. I don't think that I'd ever crave this dish, but it was a nice change, and I'm glad I made it.

Date Cooked: July 11, 2009
Degree of Difficulty: Easy
Rating: B

*This recipe isn't on epicurious.com.

176. Sour Cherry Crostata (p. 779)

Nothing says Fourth of July better than cherry pie. I decided to make this recipe for our family's Fourth cookout with some sour cherries I had kicking around in my freezer since last summer. But this isn't your usual cherry pie. In fact, it isn't a pie at all. It's a crostata, a tart made with Italian pasta frolla, a shortbread-like dough that's sweeter, and more cookie-like than regular pie crust.

First, I made the pasta frolla. I beat some softened butter and sugar in my Kitchen Aid for a few minutes. Using a fork, I lightly beat an egg and put all but one tablespoon of it into the batter (the reserved tablespoon is for an egg wash on the top of the crust after the pie is assembled). Then I beat in some vanilla extract, flour, salt and lemon zest. I stopped beating once it formed a crumbly dough. I gathered it up into a ball, divided it up into two pieces, flattened them into discs and put them in the refrigerator to firm up.

Next, I made the filling. I heated some butter in a deep skillet and added the frozen cherries and some sugar. (The Book calls for either fresh cherries or frozen ones that are not thawed.) I cooked the cherries until they were soft but still intact, and had exuded a lot of their juices. Then, I mixed together some cornstarch and water and stirred it into the hot cherries and brought it to a boil. The cornstarch had the desired effect of thickening the filling, but it also had an undesired effect of making some big congealed chunks of cornstarch. (Maybe I didn't stir it enough or fast enough while it boiled?) Anyway, I was able to pick out most of the clumps, so it turned out OK. I spread the filling into a shallow dish and put it in the refrigerator to cool while I rolled out the dough.

I took one of the dough disks out of the fridge and put it between two pieces of wax paper and rolled it out into about a 12-inch circle. I really liked rolling the dough out this way. I didn't have to mess with flouring the board or rolling pin. It didn't stick to the work surface, and it didn't crack or break. I don't see why you couldn't roll out regular pie crust this way, too. I'm going to give it a try next time. After I rolled out the dough, I peeled off the top layer of wax paper and inverted the dough into a removable-bottomed tart pan. I folded the overhand over and pressed it into the sides of the tart pan to reinforce the edge. I put the tart shell back in the fridge and took out the other dough disk. I rolled it out the same as the first, cut it into ten one-inch wide strips, and put it back in the fridge for a few minutes to get them nice and firm.

Meanwhile, I put a foil-lined baking sheet into the oven and pre-heated it. I filled the chilled tart shell with the cherry filling and arranged the pasta frolla strips in a diagonal lattice. I brushed the lattice with the reserved egg and sprinkled the top of the tart with sugar. I baked the tart for about an hour. The long cooking time meant that there was a little over-browning on the edges of the crust (hello pie shields!) and some bubbling over of the filling (hence to baking sheet).

The Book says that this crostata tastes best the day it's made, but I made it the day before our Fourth of July cookout, and it was great. The crust was sweet and crisp and light. The little bit of lemon zest in the crust gave it an unexpected zip. The filling was excellent. Sweet and thick and full of delicious cherry flavor. And it looked great. It was a real hit at the cookout. Even my nephews, who never eat dessert (kids who don't like dessert? go figure), were all over it.

Date Cooked: July 4, 2009
Degree of Difficulty: Medium
Rating: A-

39. Apricot Raspberry Pie (p. 763)

On Saturday, we had dinner with our good friends Tricia and Kenny, and their adorable, thirteen-month-old son, Jack. We ate at Amrhein' s, an upscale neighborhood joint in South Boston where they serve comfort food on crack. My wife had a an outrageous chicken pot pie and a rich clam chowder garnished with a clam fritter. I had macaroni and cheese with ... wait for it ... lobster! The food was excellent, and it almost made up for the huge piece of broken glass at the bottom of Tricia's beer glass (Eeek!). After dinner, we went back to Tricia and Kenny's place to enjoy pie and good conversation on their deck.

I wanted to make this recipe while apricots and raspberries were still in season. I went to my local mega-mart to pick up the fruit I needed for the pie, but much to my dismay, they didn't have a single apricot. Not even one. But, you'll never guess what they did have ... the sour cherries I was looking for last week for my cherry pie. How's that for timing? But now that I know how hard they are to come by, I decided to buy all that they had, three pints. Here, I have to make a little aside about my glorious cherries.

I took the cherries home, washed them, pitted them, and froze them. So, I was going to tell you how much I love my cherry pitter. This seriously is the best kitchen invention ever. I've never used a kitchen gadget that was so perfectly suited to its task. There are lots of kitchen tools that don't work that great, or that do something that you just don't need a separate tool to do. But pitting an cherry or olive without one of these babies would be an impossibly frustrating job. Even if you only pit cherries once in your life, it's well worth it to have a pitter. As I worked my way through my three pints of cherries, I developed a nice rhythm, and it was a pretty pleasant and zen-like chore. In the end, I had over nine cups of frozen sour cherries packed away full of promise and possibility.

OK, back to the pie. I went to another grocery store in search of apricots, and ... success! Eight juicy apricots wrapped in that uniquely velvety skin. The filling for this pie is made up of apricot wedges, raspberries, sugar, cornstarch and just a bit of salt.


I put it into a pie plate with a rolled-out round of The Book's Basic Pastry Dough. This is the second time I've made pastry dough in just as many weeks, and you know what they say about practice making perfect. Well, I wouldn't say that it was perfect, but it was better, and easier to make and roll. I topped the pie with an egg wash and a generous sprinkling of sugar and popped it in the oven. Even though the oven temperature gets turned down after the first few minutes, the edges of the crust were still browning too fast. To keep them from burning, I pulled out my trusty pie shields. These little wonders have been knocking around in our kitchen junk drawer for a few years. I'm not even sure where they came from, and I only just recently learned what they were for.

As you can see from the photo at the beginning of this post, the finished pie wasn't going to win any beauty contests. The filling oozed out onto the top crust, and I was a couple of minutes late in putting the pie shields on, so the crust was a little dark around the edges. But what it lacked in good looks, the pie made up in taste. The crust was flaky and delicious. The sprinkling of sugar gave the crust a nice sweetness and just a little bit of crispiness. The flavor of the filling was an intense combination of sweet and tart, and it had a beautiful magenta color. It reminded me of the strawberry rhubarb pie that my grandmother made when I was a kid with rhubarb from her garden. This was an excellent and unusual celebration of some of summer's best fruits. A real treat.

Date Cooked: August 10, 2008
Degree of Difficulty: Medium
Rating: A-