Have you ever made a horrible mistake?
I’m talking worse than starting a grease fire when your confit cooking goes awry.
Worse than overcooking fish.
Even worse than deflating mousse.
Actually, if you type “disaster” in the search bar of my blog you’ll come up with a whole slew of situations I unwittingly put myself into and then wrote about so you don’t make the same mistake.
Don’t believe me? I’ll keep going…
Worse than killing your rice sourdough culture…or your vermi-composting worms…or throwing out your Nuka pot. And even worse than chopping 5 pounds of chili peppers without gloves, then spending the night with your hands in a bowl of yogurt.
All of those things happened.
But really, in the end, it was never the end of the world. I did more damage to myself cutting cabbage and de-husking 20 pounds of corn on the cob than I did with any of the above disasters. Besides, the mousse was still delicious, I had good wine to drown the fish, and I ended up with one great jar of salsa that I stared at, knowingly, on my shelf for a long, long time before devouring with a smirk.
Sometimes, though, you make horrible mistakes. The kind where there’s nothing you can do but apologize. Over and over. Until you can’t be any more sorry. Maybe you’ll be forgiven. And if not, you deal with it. You suck it up, and live with the shame or the guilt or the sadness.
Because sometimes we all get it wrong. And sometimes we’re not very forgiving.
But every now and then, a miracle happens. The mousse stays up. And you have to take a moment and be astonished. And grateful. It’s an olive branch in a mess of weeds. And it inspires you to keep trying.
So in honour of second and third and fourth and fifth tries, here’s a recipe that I’m glad I got right. It’s not hard. I just learned to do it well by making other related recipes poorly—sweet-and-sour Thai soups and gluten-free pastry. This recipe includes the tricks I picked up along the way, so you can make it right the first time. Because if you’re going to make a mistake, hopefully you’ll learn from it.
Peach, Tamarind and Tarragon Pie
This pie is gluten-free and lactose-free. By rolling the pie crust between two pieces of plastic wrap you save yourself from lifting the crumbling dough onto the pie plate and watching the whole thing fall apart. And placing a ball of tamarind pulp in a strainer submerged in a small amount of boiling water saves you the trouble of squeezing the pulp away from the seed and getting tamarind juice all over your kitchen and your hands. This makes two pie bottoms, or one pie bottom and a top. Freeze the second bottom in a pie plate for later if you’re not making two pies, but better yet to make two pies and freeze the second already completed.
For the pie crust:
2 cups gluten-free flour blend (I use Cuisine Soleil brand. You can also make your own)
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup earth balance margarine or shortening, chilled, cut into small pieces (or other vegan margarine)
1 egg yolk
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
4-5 tablespoons ice water
Whisk together the flour and salt. Add the earth balance margarine and shortening and cut in with forks or a pastry cutter until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Add the egg yolk, lemon juice, and just enough of the ice water for the dough to come together (start with 4 tbsp). Divide the dough into 2 pieces and flatten into 2 thick disks. Wrap the disks in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 1-2 hours.
Make your pie filling.
Place the discs on two pieces of plastic wrap bigger than a pie plate. Top each with another piece of plastic wrap and roll out into rounds that are, again, bigger than your pie plate. Life the top piece of plastic wrap and invert a pie plate on top of the crust. Gently flip the cust over so the crust lines the bottom of the 9″ plate. Press into the plate, cut off excess along the edges, and crimp the edges however you want. Spoon the filling into the dish.
Place the pies on a large baking sheet and bake at 425ºF for 10 minutes. Then lower the heat to 350ºF and bake another 25 minutes, or until the crust is golden and the filling bubbling. Cover the edges of the crust in aluminum foil if they’re starting to get too brown but the filling isn’t cooked yet.
For the filling:
1 cup tamarind purée from an egg-sized chunk of tamarind
1 cup water
6-7 peaches, un-peeled, cored and cut into slices (about 4 cups, or more for a piled-high-pie)
3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
3/4 cup sugar
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/3 cup gluten-free flour or tapioca starch
3 tbsp fresh tarragon
Bring the water to a boil in a small saucepan. Either place the tamarind in a deep sieve and submerge it in the boiling water while pressing against the sides of the sieve with a spoon to remove the pulp from the fibre and pits, OR let the tamarind soak in the water for 30 minutes off the heat. Then sieve it and reserve the juice, pressing against the sides of the sieve to extract as much liquid as possible.
In a large bowl, combine the sieved tamarind juices with the peaches, lemon juice, sugar, nutmeg, cinnamon, flour and 1 tbsp of the tarragon. Stir gently to combine. Overlap peach slices slightly in pie plates. Top with 1 more tbsp of the tarragon. Bake as above. Sprinkle with remaining tarragon. (Note: you only need to make the top layer of the pies pretty. You can just shove slices in however you want on the bottom layers. No one will see…)
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