A sour, creamy liquid filled the dry cavity of my mouth at 5:45 on a Monday morning. I cringed, doubled over in horror as I miraculously managed to swallow the potion I had procured from my refrigerator. What did I just consume? A nightmare was being microwaved in my mind, one that depicted me, barefoot and in boxer shorts, inescapably re-enacting this awful spectacle many times throughout my seven-hour school day.
Oh. Buttermilk. We always have buttermilk in my house, and, every other day, I unfailingly mistake it for a carton of Florida Orange Juice, pouring myself a hearty glass of a substance that is intended to taste spoiled. A necessary ingredient to my specialty, the Buttermilk Apple Pie, it certainly keeps for many weeks before I turn it into the custard that makes up the pie's filling.
Buttermilk pie, though somewhat obscure, has been around for a while. A soft, yellow custard pie with the moist consistency of grits, it's a personal favorite of mine. Not like so many overwhelmingly sweet desserts that could power the island of Manhattan for a week with their sugar content alone, it begs for slow assimilation to truly savor its subtlety and delicacy. In my crusade to create the perfect-but original-apple pie, I sought to combine the two classics. My first ambitious try yielded a nine-inch pan only half full of a yellowish gelatin with apple slices floating around in it. “Needs cinnamon and nutmeg,” my dad sagely proclaimed. My family huddled around the table with spoons.
Ten or so attempts later, I've perfected what I can truly call a creation of my own design. Not a traditionally sweet and syrupy dessert, but not entirely exotic and unusual, it combines the creamy subtleties of the buttermilk custard with the classic nutmeg, cinnamon, and Granny Smith apples. The result is a unique fusion of tart, spice, and sweetness (not to mention a drastic improvement in my patience that resulted from my learning to roll pie crust).
Other examples of things I’ve set out to add to my repertoire include: rolling sushi, baking chocolate layer cake, blackening salmon fillets, grilling shrimp, pan-searing veal scaloppini, or making foccacia. My friends (seeking engineering, business or computer science degrees) used to say I was crazy when I said I like to cook; that I want to go to culinary school. Having since been served slices of my raspberry cheesecake, most now believe me when I say that I have a passion for food and for making people happy with it. I fell in love with the hands-on, methodical techniques used in the culinary arts, the steady rocking motion of my chef’s knife, and the smell of garlic and herbs on my hands that other students are baffled by in the classroom. Giving others a gift so real, so sensual as food prepared by my own hands is invaluable, and to do so professionally is my dream.
Buttermilk Apple Pie
Ingredients:
1 cup sugar
¼ cup flour
1 egg plus three egg yolks
1 ¾ cups buttermilk
1 tablespoon butter
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1 tbsp cinnamon
1 tsp nutmeg
5 Granny Smith apples
Crust:
2 cups flour
1/3 tsp salt
2/3 cup shortening
4 tbsp cold water
Prepare the pie crust in a nine-inch pan and save excess dough to make a lattice.
Combine the sugar and flour. Beat the egg and yolks and add to the sugar/flour mixture.
Stir in the buttermilk, peeled, sliced, and quartered apples, cinnamon, and nutmeg, and cook in a double boiler set over simmering water for 20 minutes, constantly stirring. Remove the pan from the heat, and stir in the butter and lemon juice. Turn the filling into the pie crust. Design a lattice on top of the filling and bake for 45-50 minutes (or until golden brown) at 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
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