Lemon Meringue Pie, Part 1: The Crust

The combination of taste and smell can jog the memory in profound ways. Certain foods we ate when we were younger? They continue to shape the present, to mold our thoughts, if unconsciously. Bruce would point to his mother's veal and peppers--or to her stuffed cabbage. For me, it's lemon meringue pie, a holy talisman of the past. I should have eaten a slice every week in therapy. For a lot of reasons.

So here goes the first in a three-part exploration of one of my favorite things. To start, the crust.

It's not fancy. Instead, very homey and downscale. My Southern roots, after all. There are few fancy tricks. No combination of fats or flours. Sure, I've tried tonier fare. But I come back to the basic every time.

First off, put 1 cup all-purpose flour and 1/3 cup plus 1 tablespoon solid vegetable shortening in a large bowl. These days, I use the trans-fat free shortening available in places like Whole Foods. Use a pastry cutter (preferably) or a fork to cut the fat into the flour until the whole thing resembles very coarse sand, maybe as coarse as the stuff you'd put in the bottom of an aquarium. You do this by repeatedly rocking and pushing the cutter or the fork through the fat and into the flour, gathering it back together and pulling the loose flour from the sides, cleaning out the tines, and working it all again and again.

Once you've got the right consistency, add 1 teaspoon white or apple cider vinegar and 3 tablespoons very cold tap water. Why the vinegar? It helps break those long flour glutens, allowing the crust to become flaky, rather than bready.

Some people use ice water. I've always found it a fussy and needless addition when working solely with shortening. Cold tap water will do. Cold enough not to melt the fat--but no ice required.

Stir these liquids in with a fork, then see where you are. If the crust will not yet gather into a ball in the bowl, add a little more cold water, maybe a couple teaspoons. Stir again, then see where you are. It's an eyeball project because flour absorbs ambient moisture from humidity and also loses it in long storage. One man's flour is another man's dust. Thus, you have to keep working with the mixture. Three tablespoons cold water is definitely too little; five tablespoons, probably too much. The ball shouldn't be wet, but it should definitely be a little sticky and easily adhere together.

Sprinkle a few drops of water onto your work surface--then lay a large piece of wax paper over those droplets which will hold the wax paper in place while you roll out the crust.

Lightly flour the wax paper, then place the dough ball at its middle. Gently flatten the dough circle with your palm, then lightly flour the dough. Now begin rolling. And not all in one way. Roll in various directions. Like this: set the rolling pin so that it functions as the diameter of the circle, then roll once or twice back and forth. After one roll, rotate the pin slightly (still set as the diameter) and roll again back and forth. And again after another slight rotation. And again. Add a little extra flour if the dough sticks in any way. Keep working the pin around the circle until the dough itself has flattened out into one. (In the picture, you can see that I've moved the rolling pin a bit to the side to show the fairly flat and uniform texture of the crust.)

The only way to tell the right size? Set the pie plate you'll be using on top and check out what you've got. The diameter of the dough circle should be larger than the rim-to-rim diameter of the pie plate by an inch or more. I'm using a 9-inch pie plate here. You could use an 8-inch plate and have lots of crust to cut off later. Or you could use a 10-inch plate and have a slightly thinner crust.

Remove the pie plate and pick up the wax paper with the crust on it. Hold the crust with one hand, then turn the wax paper over (yes, flour will fly) and set it wax paper side up on the pie plate. Position the crust so that it's centered on the plate, then peel off the wax paper. Now press the crust down into the pie plate so that the edges conform to those of the plate.

Fold the excess edge over--you can see how much excess I would have--and then trim off any dough that would more than double the rim of the crust.

Now to flute it. Take one hand--I'm right-handed so it would be my right hand--and make a "V" with your thumb and forefinger. Push this from the outside on the upper rim of the pie plate into the dough while at the same time pushing the forefinger of your other hand from the inside of the plate into the "V" of your fingers, thereby crimping the dough. Do this process all the way around the rim, creating a fluted edge. And voila. Done.

Almost. A lemon meringue pie's crust must be prebaked. To do so, prick the crust all over the the tines of a fork--so it won't shrink and morph in the heat.  All over--sides as well. Then place it in a preheated 400F oven for 8 to 10 minutes until lightly browned and firm to the touch. You can see how mine's, well, rustic. The crust overlaps untidily in places. But it's all going to get covered with a filling--and frankly, it's about the way I remember it from childhood. So it's perfect in its imperfections. About like most of the rest of us.

Remove the hot crust from the oven and set on a rack to cool--while you're off to make the filling (aka, part 2).

Comments

[Roving Lemon]

Can I just say that wax paper trick is GENIUS. I am definitely trying that next time I roll out a pie crust.