Corn Pie - A Pennsylvania Dutch Recipe

My occasional forays into family history and genealogy helped me learn that one branch of the family was Pennsylvania Dutch, which tickled me because I have always found their foodstuffs and techniques appealing.  I have several cookbooks with their recipes in my collection, and today's recipe came from J. George Frederick's Pennsylvania Dutch Cook Book.

ISBN 0-486-22676-X

It was published by Dover Publications in 1971 and is described as "an unabridged republication of Part II, 'Cookery', of The Pennsylvania Dutch and their Cookery, as originally published ... in 1935."

I found the cover charming, and the various categories include the usual soups, salads, vegetable dishes, etc., but also more intriguing ones like "Various Dutch Oddities", "The Dutch 'Seven Sweets and Seven Sours'" (a reference to the tradition of loading the table with precisely seven sweets and seven sours of preserves, canned good, pickles, etc.), and "Ways with Philadelphia Scrapple."

This recipe is found in the "Pennsylvania Dutch Pies" section, on page 114.  I was tempted to try it because it was a savory dish and uses one of my favorite ingredients, corn.

Dutch Corn Pie

Line a casserole with pastry (not quite as rich as for a pie).  Into this put a can of corn (not crushed) mixed with four or five chopped hard boiled eggs and seasoned with salt and pepper.  Scatter a good tablespoon of flour over the top.  Put dabs of butter around and enough milk to almost cover the corn and then cover with an upper crust.

Bake in a hot oven for about an hour.

My Ingredients

enough pastry for a two-crust pie

2 cans (15.25 ounces each) sweet corn

5 hard boiled eggs, shelled and chopped

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon pepper

about 1 1/2 tablespoon flour

butter (1 to 2 tablespoons)

about 2/3 cup milk (I used 1/3 cup evaporated milk and 1/3 cup water, mixed)

My Notes

I used my go-to pie crust recipe, as found here in a previous post.  Since I needed as "less rich" crust, I used equal parts butter and vegetable shortening.  It hydrated and chilled in the refrigerator for several hours before I rolled it out.

I wasn't sure how many cans of corn I would need, which is why there are four cans in the picture.  Two turned out to be enough.  

I mixed the corn, eggs, salt, and pepper in a bowl and then put them into the crust.  That quantity seemed to fill the 9 inch wide pie crust just right.

It was difficult to sprinkle the big spoonful of flour evenly across the top of the corn.  I think I would use a small sifter next time.  I ended up putting on another small spoonful after my first attempt, and I did a slightly better job sprinkling it on the bare spots.

I didn't measure the butter, I just took little bits (maybe 1/2 teaspoon each?) and put them around the top.

It turned out that 2/3 cup of milk was just right. It was a good guess!

After I put on the top crust and crimped the edges, I put it in the oven at 350 degrees F for 50 minutes.  That is when the crust was a nice golden brown.

It cooled on the counter and then was put into the refrigerator for taste-testing the next day.  

The Verdict

The pie was cut when cold but the pieces to be eaten were heated in the microwave oven until steaming hot in the center.

What amazed me was how firm the filling was.  The milk, flour, and butter combined to make a filling that didn't fall apart when a piece was cut.  It was not runny at all, even after heating.

So how was it?

The filling had a creamy texture, although the corn remained crisp.  There was enough salt and pepper - the balance was good.

The eggs and corn were good complements, although the egg flavor was muted next to the corn flavor. (My guest taster appreciated the eggs as added protein.)

As I said, the filling was firm, but it was not dry.  It didn't need to be more juicy or wet.

As for the crust, there is a reason it is my go-to:  it was "just right"!  Fluffy, flaky, light, and cut easily with a fork.  And it is so easy to make!

Success!  If you love the taste of corn (and I do), give this a shot as either a main dish or a side dish to some roast meat.  

Or, if you want to match what we did, have it for breakfast!

Stuffed Beef Breast

AKA:
Gefulte Rinderbrust

I got this from my Pennsylvania Dutch Cook Book, by J. George Frederick.  It was published by Dover Publications, Inc. in 1971.

ISBN:  0-486-22676-X

Dover is stellar in my mind because they reprint, often completely, works that were published previously but may have otherwise been lost to time.  This cook book is "an unabridged republication of Part II, 'Cookery,' of the The Pennsylvania Dutch and their Cookery, as originally published by The Business Bourse in 1935."  (A bourse is a stock exchange; I wonder why they were publishing recipes!)

Gefulte Rinderbrust is on page 47, recipe #86, and looked both simple and interesting as something to do with a chunk of beef.

1 beef fillet
1 onion
1 teaspoon minced parsley
1/2 lb chopped meat
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper

Chop the onion, mince the parsley, add the salt and pepper.  Spread this over the beef fillet, rub in well on both sides.  Cover the fillet with the chopped meat, seasoned, and roll and tie it.  Cook until tender in covered pot with one cup of water.  Make a gravy to serve with it.

For my chopped meat, I chose ham

I had a piece of beef tenderloin.  Not exactly "breast" but I thought I could make do with it.  It was a thick slab of meat, so I cut in nearly in half horizontally (leaving a hinge) and then cut those nearly-halves nearly in half again, keeping everything connected.  This gave me a long, thin cut of meat.

See the three hinges?

My parsley patch was empty so I used basil instead.  Once the onion, basil, salt, and pepper were chopped and well-mixed, I spread it over the beef on each side, rubbing it in.  Since I was not sure quite how that works, I just rubbed until it seems like the herbs and spices were sticking and the onion had good contact.

Aye, there's the rub!

The chopped meat I used was ham.  I didn't season it because ham is already salty.  Plus I used more than 1/4 tsp of pepper in the onion mix.  It seemed like enough.  I'm sure if I had chopped the ham finer, or even ground it, it would have spread further along the beef, but I wasn't particularly concerned about it.  It rolled easily and I used two long wooden skewers instead of tying it.  All of the onion mix that fell off when I rolled the beef was piled on top of the roll before it went into the oven.

Ready to roll

Ready for the oven

It baked, with the cup of water and covered, for 2 hours at 300 degrees Fahrenheit.  That was a guess on my part.  I wanted slow cooking so it got tender without being rushed.

The Verdict:  Success!  Two hours was plenty of time -- perhaps I could have gone less -- but the meat was tender, cooked all the way through, and the flavor was lovely.  The beef was brown, the ham was red, and the onions were cream colored, so you could easily see the spiral from the rolling.  The basil was not strong; it was easily a background flavor and I could have probably spiced the meat even more without worry.  I didn't make any gravy because I wanted to taste it without that extra. There was plenty of liquid in the pan to use for gravy, if you wanted to.

Whole

Sliced

Definitely a repeater.  This is something that would be fun to serve to guests because it looks impressive once it is sliced.