A month or two back, our DVR caught Alton Brown's Good Eats episode from 2008: Super Apple Pie. Last Sunday, I got around to making an apple pie and incorporated a few of the ideas from that show.
The major novelty was to use grains of paradise in the recipe. Grains of paradise is a spice not typically found in the local supermarket. Indeed, I didn't find it at Wholefoods or online at Penzys. A web search, of course, did find The Spice House, and they lured me into ordering a spice grinder (see photo) as well.
Alton also touted using apple jack as a replacement for the half dozen tablespoons of water that go into making the dough for the crust. There was less medicinal odor compared to the vodka I had tried back in April. But rolling out the dough was a chore and the end result wasn't noticeably superior. Perhaps I didn't leave the dough sit long enough to allow the gluten proteins to develop.
Grains of paradise is described as peppery. It is a nice taste that lets the apple flavors come to the fore. Jen was underwhelmed, I will attribute that to the absence of the traditional cinnamon and nutmeg. Still, the pie did not last long. And although Josey was pleased with the pie, she really likes the accompanying vanilla ice cream!
Other recommendations from the TV show had to do with paraphernalia. We have a cheap apple combination slicer and corer of forgotten provenance. It cuts an apple into eight wedges. It is thought thinner wedges lead to the ideal size, so I have been looking at twelve wedge slicers. That should go on my holiday gift list. When searching on Amazon, they like to offer up likely shopping combinations; suggested were pie birds, grains of paradise, and removable bottom tart pans. All of which appeared on Good Eats. Methinks there were a lot of folks watching that show.
As for pie birds, I had one at the old house, but haven't seen it since moving. Too much stuff!
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