Aunt Emma's Never Fail Pie Crust

3 c sifted flour
1 1/4 c Shortening
1 tsp salt
1 egg, well beaten
5 Tbsp water
1 Tbsp vinegar

Cut shortening into flour and salt.
Combine egg, water, and vinegar in a separate bowl.
Pour liquid into flour mixture all at once. Blend with spoon until flour is all moistened.
It can be re-rolled without toughening. Will keep in refrigerator for two weeks or divide into balls enough for one pie and wrap in Saran wrap and freeze indefinitely.

Makes 2 crusts

Friday, September 2, 2011

Pretty Corny

This week we, the French Fridays with Dorie online cooking group, made Corn Soup, from Around My French Table, page 60.  I say "Good Thing" because I never in my life made any corn recipe using corn I cut right off the cob! What was I waiting for?  No idea.  What a revelation. This dish actually tasted like FRESH CORN.  Hmmm.

Oh, these purty!
The list of ingredients, at first glance, appeared lengthy: corn, whole milk, butter, onion, celery, carrrot, garlic, thyme, rosemary, bay leaf. Oh, and that's only for the soup itself.  But really, all this stuff is either already in my garden, my refrigerator, my pantry, or my nearby supermarket. Cinchy. Stripping the corn kernels off the cob was easier than it sounds.  Even I managed to do it with ease and no bloodshed.

The stripped corn cobs are steeped in the hot milk while the other ingredients are cooked in the butter until soft. The corn cob/ milk mixture is poured into the veggie pot and simmered.

Ultimately the herbs and corn cobs are removed.
I used an immersion blender to puree the remaining veggies in the liquid.
The garnish consists of corn kernels from another ear of corn, scallion sliced, cayenne pepper, and cooked, crumbled bacon.  A dollop of creme fraiche tops it off at serving time.  According to Dorie, this recipe is not traditionally French, but I say Magnifique!  We loved it.

6 comments:

  1. Your soup has a lovely orange color. This recipe was a first for me too. We liked it but I'm sure it'll be better if I had the garnishes!

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  2. Lovely soup and this is my first time too and I am glad I did not give it a miss ! Love it nd I shall be making this again for corn a plenty over here ...all season :)

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  3. I have to confess my first time cutting corn off the cob was just a few weeks ago. It was definitely a bang your head on the wall kind of moment :-)
    Glad this was a hit for you.

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  4. Glad you had no bloodshed cutting off those corn kernels. I loved the fresh corny taste of the soup. It tasted like pure summer. Nice job.

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  5. Maybe this was not as unanimously loved by everyone as the tomatoes, or even last week's burger, but I think the majority of us Doristas really enjoyed this one. Magnifique indeed!

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  6. we enjoyed it too and it cooked a lot faster than I imagined when I first looked at the recipe and ingredients.

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