When Life Hands You Lemons ... Make a Lemon Cream Pie

In a previous post, I explained how my wonderful neighbor gave me his bountiful harvest of Meyer lemons and that my daughter and I decided that the end of the saying, "When life hands you lemons" is "get cooking!"

After pickling lemons and making a savory chicken and lemon pie, we wanted a dessert.  We revisited Rufus Estes' Good Things to Eat, which was the book used for the very first post of this blog, Peanut Meatose.

ISBN 0-486-43764-7

Here is an excerpt from that post:

Mr. Estes was born a slave in 1857, was employed by a restaurant-keeper at the age of 16, and then became a cook for the railroads at age 26, where he continued for most of the rest of his life.  His culinary skills were so valued that he was assigned to cook in a special car that catered to celebrities.  Mr. Estes prepared food for presidents, princesses, famous actors and singers, and more.  He was trusted to provide them with a good meal and, upon viewing his recipes, I can see that that trust was not misplaced. 

One thing I like about this book is that it is "The First Cookbook by an African-American Chef."  Mr. Estes says, in his foreword,

This book, the child of his brain, and experience, extending over a long period of time and varying environment, ... The recipes given in the following pages represent the labor of years.  Their worth has been demonstrated, not by experimentally, but by actual tests, day by day and month by month, under dissimilar, and, in many instances, not too favorable conditions.

This man was obviously talented and proud of his accomplishments, and I am grateful he took the time to share his recipes with us.

He offers quite a few recipes that use lemons, including an "old-fashion" lemon pie "because it is baked between two crusts, yet many have called it the best of all kinds."  It actually looks quite simple and I might try it some time.  He also gives a "Large Lemon Pie" recipe, which is what we call a Lemon Meringue Pie.

On page 92, he gives another lemon pie recipe that seems like a lemon meringue pie but is cooked differently.  This is what we decided to try.

Lemon Cream Pie

Stir into one cup of boiling water one tablespoonful of cornstarch dissolved in a little cold water.  Cook until thickened and clear, then add one cup sugar, a teaspoonful of butter, and the juice and grated rind of two lemons.  Add the beaten yolks of three eggs and take from the fire.  Have ready the bottom crust of a pie that has been baked, first pricking with a fork to prevent blisters.  Place the custard in the crust and bake half an hour.  When done, take from the oven and spread over the top a meringue made from the stiffly whipped whites of the eggs, and three tablespoonfuls of sugar.  Shut off the oven so it will be as cool as possible giving the meringue plenty of time to rise, stiffen and color to a delicate gold.

And water

My Notes
For the pastry, we used the same crust recipe I used for the Elizabethan meat pie last March.  It baked with a bottom weight (instead of pricking it) at 425 degrees F in a ceramic pie pan for 8 minutes.

I had trouble getting the cornstarch mixture to become completely clear but it did get thick.  I turned the heat down once it was pretty clear so as not to break the thickening feature of the cornstarch.

The Meyer lemons are small so I used the grated rind of two of them and the juice of three.

The "custard" was runny and we worried it wouldn't set up.

After baking for 30 minutes at 350 degrees F, it was still runny.  Since the crust wasn't very brown, we put it back into the oven for another 10 minutes.  During this time, the filling bubbled and thickened.

At this point the crust was brown and we didn't want it burnt, so we took the pie out of the oven.  The filling hadn't set but we hoped it would after it had a chance to cool.  I had whipped the egg whites and sugar into a meringue while the pie was baking so that had to go into a container into the refrigerator.

The pie cooled a little but the filling still hadn't set so we put it into the refrigerator, too, with the idea to put the meringue on the next day.

The Verdict

The next morning we checked the pie and the filling still hadn't set.  It was too runny to serve as a pie, so we poured the filling into a container.  By the way, the crust had cooked up beautifully and stayed in one piece when we popped it out of the pan.  Heart-breaking! (Tasty, too, later on.)

Tilt and slide

My daughter then made a vanilla cake (thank you, Betty Crocker!), split the layer, poured some filling over the bottom layer, put on the top layer, frosted the top of the cake with whipped cream, and decorated it with fresh blackberries and the lemon filling over the top.



It made for a lovely impromptu dessert and was well-received.  The lemon filling was tart, lemony, and not too sweet.  The little bits of zest were pretty and added a nice lemon burst.

The next day we made pancakes and, instead of syrup, we spooned the lemon filling and a blueberry compote over the top.

After that, we put the lemon sauce and more of the blueberry compote on some lemon scones.

I have to call this recipe a failure because it didn't set up properly to be served as a pie.  I think the problem was that there was not enough cornstarch to thicken the liquid.  The standard is 1 tablespoon cornstarch to 1 cup liquid and, between the water and the juice, we had more than 1 1/4 cup liquid. Next time I would use at least 1 1/2 tablespoons of cornstarch.  Still, I am not sure why this pie needed to be baked after the filling was cooked and thickened.

Finally, I needed to do something with the whipped egg whites I had made the night before.  Sitting had made them separate and they did not look like something I wanted to use "as is."  So I put them back into the mixer and beat them, hoping to get them back to stiff and usable.  I was surprised to see that they could be beaten back to stiff.  Once they were ready again, I spooned them into little piles on parchment paper and lightly baked them into simple meringue cookies.

The nice thing about knowing how to cook is being able to adapt and recover from failures.  : )

Hash with Dropped Eggs

Today I was in a "Rufus Estes" mood, after looking back on my first blog post in January 2012.  I wanted to do something like a main course and it needed to be something I wouldn't normally do.

ISBN 0-486-43764-7

I chose "Hash with Dropped Eggs" on page 18.  The mental image I got of the eggs on top of the whole thing tickled my fancy, so here it is.

Mince or grind cold cooked meat and add two-thirds as much cold chopped vegetables.  The best proportions of vegetables are half potato and one-quarter each of beets and carrots.  Put a little gravy stock or hot water with butter melted in it, into a saucepan, turn in the meat and vegetables and heat, stirring all the time.  Season with salt, pepper, and a little onion juice if liked.  Turn into a buttered baking dish, smooth over, and set in the oven to brown.  Take up and press little depressions in the top, and drop an egg into each.  Set back into the oven until the egg is set, but not cooked hard.  Serve in the same dish.

I used smoked pork shoulder and minced it.  I didn't have a lot of it, so I added more vegetables than he suggested in order to make a significant layer in the dish.  He doesn't say it, but the vegetables also have to be cooked.  I used potatoes, beets, and carrots as mentioned and to get the onion juice, I grated an onion on my microplane grater until I had about 2 teaspoons of onion mush.

Much of the meat is under the veggies.

It was hard to guess how much water with melted butter to use, so I guessed about 1 cup.  That was too much, I think, because the mix was liquidy when I put it into the dish.  As I expected, the beets turned everything pink!  It is not bad and kind of cute, actually.

I put it into a hot oven, 400 degrees F, in order to brown it.  It smelled good!

After 20 minutes I checked it -- it was bubbly and just starting to brown, so I left it in for another 7 minutes.  That was just right.

To make the depressions, I pressed with the bottom a small bowl.  I couldn't press deeply as the hash wouldn't let me but I got enough that the eggs sat where I put them.  I noticed the whites started to cook a little as soon as they hit the hot surface.

I had no idea how long it takes eggs to set in the oven, but after 7 minutes the white was set and the yolk looked like a "sunny-side up" egg.  That is the way I like them (I love hot, runny yolks!) so I pulled it out of the oven.  If you like them firmer, you could probably leave them in for 10 minutes but be aware the eggs continue to cook after the dish is out of the oven.

Visually very appealing

The Verdict:
Success!  I really liked the flavor of this.  It was hearty, stick-to-your-ribs, with an old-fashioned touch that is a blend of the veggies and the meat and the pepper/onion/salt.  The egg adds a nice touch, especially when the yolk broke and ran all over the hash.  I like beets but some people don't, so use veggies you like cooked.  I think chopped, cooked onions or even mushrooms would be good.

The dropped eggs looked exactly as I envisioned and I was pleased.  The beets cooked to a dark red, not pink, and it almost looked like the mixture had ketchup in it.

I do think I should have used about 1/2 cup of water with butter (or gravy, if you make that choice) but I wouldn't use much less or the hash would risk being dry.

When I went back for seconds (!), the hash was thicker (I guess it had soaked up some of the liquid) and the egg more firmly cooked.  Still very tasty!

This recipe is obviously designed to use up leftovers -- hash dishes usually are.  I didn't have the meat and veggies already cooked, so I popped them all into the oven and baked them, getting this done a few hours before I started the recipe so everything had a chance to cook and then cool.  The meat in one dish, covered, and the veggies in a tray.  That worked well and smelled heavenly. I ended up using one potato and one beet and all the carrots you see in the picture.  Next time I think I will use more meat.  He doesn't specify what kind, so I think this would be good with just about any kind.

I would say this serves 4 with other food (like sourdough bread and a tossed green salad) or 2 as is.  I considered each serving as having one egg on it.  I used a wide spoon to scoop it out so as not to break the egg.

More on Meatose

Today I took about 1/2 cup of the meatose, mashed it with a fork, then mixed in a few teaspoons of mayonnaise.  I mixed it until it was spreadable and moist.  Then I added some finely chopped dill pickles.  This made a great spread on crackers!  I think it would be a good sandwich spread, too.

Now that the meatose has been chilled, it comes across as a bit dry.  I think if I did a half recipe again, I would pull it out of the steamer after about 1 hr and 30 minutes, instead of 2 hours.  Or as soon as it seemed firm.

I wonder what else I can do with this?  : )

Peanut Meatose

Last year (an easy thing to say in January!), I visited the California State Railroad Museum in Sacramento (http://www.csrmf.org).  In their museum store I discovered and purchased this book:  Rufus Estes' Good Things to Eat.  (Dover Publications)

Mr. Estes was born a slave in 1857, was employed by a restaurant-keeper at the age of 16, and then became a cook for the railroads at age 26, where he continued for most of the rest of his life.  His culinary skills were so valued that he was assigned to cook in a special car that catered to celebrities.  Mr. Estes prepared food for presidents, princesses, famous actors and singers, and more.  He was trusted to provide them with a good meal and, upon viewing his recipes, I can see that that trust was not misplaced. 

His book offers nearly 600 recipes and they made my mouth water when I read them.  Well, all but one.  It is called Peanut Meatose, found on page 47 in the Lunch section.

Here it is:

"Dissolve one cup of cornstarch in two cups of tomato juice, add two cups of peanut butter and two teaspoons of salt.  Stir for five minutes, the pour into cans and steam for four or five hours."

Peanut butter, tomato juice, salt, and cornstarch?

It sounded pretty icky to me, to be honest.  But after trying some tomato bread toasted and spread with peanut butter, I realized that the combination of tomato and peanut butter might just be fine.  At this point, I had to try it!

So here goes.  I decided to make a half recipe.  I gathered the ingredients, mixed as directed, and placed it into a ceramic container for steaming.

A quick double-check with The Joy of Cooking confirmed my thoughts that the container needed to sit on a rack over water.  The lid fit tightly so high heat got the water boiling and then a low heat kept the steam going.  I wasn't sure how fast the water would boil off or how quickly a half recipe would cook, so I checked in on it every 30 minutes.

The water never got low enough for me to refill the container.  After about an hour, the mixture looked puffy.  After two hours, it was solid and was pulling away from the sides of the container.  I deemed it "done."

I removed it from the hot water and let it cool for about an hour.  The mixture settled a bit when cooled.

The result?  It was firm and had a nice crumb and texture.  I spread it on crackers and ... and ... and it tasted pretty good!  The flavor was nutty with a light tomato undertaste.  I think it would be good spread on bread with a little mayonnaise and lettuce.

My curiosity was aroused:  Why "meatose"?  A Google search of the name reveals that it was a brand name in the late 19th century.  Basically this recipe provided a meat substitute based on nut proteins.  This was popular during the Victorian era, during a period called "Reform Cookery" where choosing foods to be more healthy was all in vogue.  You can think of this as Victorian tofu!

I think if I had steamed this in cans as Mr. Estes suggests, I could have pushed it out as a whole cylinder and then sliced it for serving.

The Verdict:  I would do this recipe again, especially to serve to unsuspecting victims, uh, cheerful guests, to surprise them with something new and unique.