On Learning

I always thought I’d be a teacher when I grew up. Like the dutiful first child that I tend to be, I went to school to be a teacher. I continued on to graduate school. I taught college freshman in Boston and moved on to teach high school freshman back in California. My mom was a teacher and I’d grown up spending time in her classroom (ahh, the hours of Oregon Trail!), hearing tales of her students, and witnessing her late-night grading sessions. It seemed so seamlessly that, all of a sudden, I had a classroom and tales of my own. Until I didn’t. The teaching climate in California was (and still is) a tough one and finding solid work became impossible. People often ask if I miss teaching. I miss my students a great deal and I miss the act of teaching — the challenge of thinking through how to present a piece of information or a structured lesson so that a classroom full of different kinds of learners could really “get it.” I realized last week that, while I’ve been out of the academic classroom for a few years now, in many ways, I’m still doing the very same thing. Food writing and recipe development has, at its core, the act of learning and teaching. There are new kitchen skills to master and dishes to try; there are ways we take what we learn and make it our own based on tastes, ability level or preference; there are then ways we pass them on to others. Saturday night that process came to be in the form of a very fine roast chicken and a grapefruit chess pie. 

I roasted my first chicken about a month ago. I know, I know: I’m a little late to the game. It’s been one of my main sources of kitchen and food writing shame: shhh, I have no clue how to roast a chicken! I’d decided all that was silly, so I set out researching many different recipes, landing on one from The Commonsense Kitchen, a book I love dearly. I bought my chicken, picked up some aromatics and lemon, gave my sister a quick call for support (she knows everything there is to know about cooking meat. I have her on speed dial), and got to roasting. A while later, Sam and I realized we’d just eaten what was essentially pretty uncooked chicken. I’d been so fearful of drying it out that it was far from properly cooked. So what began as a hopeful quest to teach myself a new kitchen skill ended with a sense of defeat. I consoled myself that, hey, I’d tried it and clearly, this once-vegetarian wasn’t meant to be much of a chicken roaster. I told the story to my friend Olaiya a few days later. She’s quite wonderful with food — she’s worked in many Seattle kitchens and was one of the founders of The Pantry. Also: she knows her way around a roast chicken, and thought with a little instruction, I could as well. So we got a date on the calendar for a proper chicken do-over. Sam and I would get the bird, the wine and the bread. She’d bring a side dish and the knowledge.  I’d make a pie. We were set.   


The chicken turned out beautifully. I brined it overnight, we stuffed it with rosemary and lemon and slathered it with olive oil, salt and pepper. Olaiya showed me how exactly to truss it and tell when the chicken is done without using a thermometer (as I’d obsessively done previously) — instead learning how to really feel when it’s done, how to wiggle the leg, how to even eyeball the juices coming out of the thigh to get a sense for it. All of that information would’ve taken pages to write down in a cookbook, but I feel like I really, truly get it now. I think I could actually teach someone else how to roast the perfect chicken at this point. But there are certain things that are best shown, yes? I think your very first roast chicken may just be one of those things. Making pie crust just may be another. If you’ve never made a pie before, you could read a million recipes and it’d take some time to get it just right. But if you have someone beside you instructing you to not let the butter warm, how to work gingerly with your fingers, how to roll out the dough in outward strokes without pressing downward — you’d likely get it in one evening.

So a few years later, while awash in rosemary and olive oil and chicken juices, I was yet again thinking about the act of teaching and all of the different ways it works best. Chicken aside: After dinner I brought out the pie I’d made, a pie born from reading about a new recipe, tweaking and revising it. The pie dough is based on a delicious rye dough I learned from Heidi (with a little added vanilla, inspired very recently by Sarah of The Yellow House) and the filling is one I stumbled across in the new Lee Brother’s cookbook,  The Lee Brothers’ Charleston Kitchen (which comes out for purchase at the end of this month). If you’re not familiar with chess pie, it’s a Southern recipe that bakes up a sweet, almost custard-like pie traditionally calling for a bit of cornmeal. I’ve had a great lemon chess pie in the past, but wouldn’t have ever thought to lay grapefruit wedges out amongst the custardy filling while baking. It was a big experiment and I couldn’t wait to see how it’d turn out.

I tried a small sliver before serving it and found myself rather smitten with it, but I wasn’t sure how others would feel.  Sam said he loved the crust but wished the citrus pieces were smaller. Olaiya would’ve sliced the grapefruit pieces in thin rounds — I agreed that may have been more delicate. Her boyfriend, Beau, seemed fond of it. My friend Keena just picked up a leftover slice to take home — we’ll see what she thinks. The point here is not the reception of the pie. Sure, some people will like a recipe and some won’t. That’s always the case. The point is the way in which we’d all do it again a little differently. We learn, we try something, and we change the way we’d do it in the future based on our findings.  The cycle continues and continues. That’s what I so love about cooking, really. It’s always changing.

In this odd little food writing world, we often call that cycle of inspiration, borrowing, learning and then taking what we like and making it our own “adapting”. And it is. But at the heart, it’s also all about learning from each other and graciously giving back — of getting excited to share a discovery, of trying to think through the very clearest and most direct way to write a recipe so you all can make it easily in your own kitchen. In this way, all of this is not so far from what I thought I’d be doing with my days years ago. Writing a clear, cogent pie recipe isn’t all that different than sitting down and breaking down a Hamlet passage: we read the original text, we break it down so we understand it, and then we pass it on in a way that makes sense to us. Today there are fewer parent conferences, for sure. Far fewer grading rubrics and pairs of Banana Republic slacks. And at the end of the day, that’s a good thing. I’m happy to have landed right where I am (decidedly not currently in Banana Republic slacks).

While the pie recipe below looks a bit complicated, it’s actually a relatively simple pie, it just requires that you pre-bake the crust so I give you pretty clear instructions for how to do that. And I also walk you through segmenting a grapefruit in case that’s a new skill. At the heart of it though, it’s a simple custard-based pie. The Lee Brothers suggest to cook the pie at 300 F, but I found this wasn’t adequate to actually set the custard, so I’ve adjusted it here so it should work for you at home. Maybe you’ll try it and let me know what you think? Maybe you’ll do a little something new with it and tell us about it here? Reading, reworking, passing it on. Adapting. Or teaching. Or whatever you’d like to call it, really.

 

Grapefruit Chess Pie with Sweet Rye Crust

Grapefruit Chess Pie with Sweet Rye Crust

  • Yield: 6 servings
  • Prep time: 40 mins
  • Cook time: 55 mins

I give instructions here for making the crust quickly with your fingertips. If you’re more comfortable and familiar making it in a food processor or have another favorite technique, by all means use that. The pie dough recipe yields enough for two pie crusts and you’ll only use one here, so freeze the other for a future pie you’re excited to try. Last, note that between the crust and filling, you’ll use 3 eggs total (although you’ll be doing some separating–see below). Please note, rest time for the pie crust isn’t indicated in the cook times above.

Adapted from: The Lee Brothers Charleston Kitchen

Ingredients

Sweet Rye Crust: (yields 2, 9-inch pie crusts)

2/3 cup rye flour
1 1/2 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
3/4 teaspoon kosher salt
1 tablespoon natural cane sugar (or granulated sugar)
16 tablespoons/2 sticks cold unsalted butter, cut into 1/4-inch cubes
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
3-6 tablespoons ice water
1 egg yolk, to use for pre-baking crust

Pie Filling:

2 grapefruits
3/4 teaspoon kosher salt
3 large egg whites
2 large egg yolks
1/2 cup heavy cream, at room temperature
4 tablespoons (1/2 stick) unsalted butter, melted
1 cup natural cane sugar (or granulated sugar)
3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons fine cornmeal, plus more for sprinkling

Instructions

To make the crust: Whisk first four ingredients together in a medium bowl. Using your fingertips, rub in butter until coarse meal forms and some small lumps remain. Drizzle vanilla extract over the dough and slowly sprinkle in cold water, 1 tablespoon at a time, quickly stirring with a fork or your fingers until the dough becomes sticky and begins to clump together into a more uniform mass. Divide dough into half and form 2 single flat, chubby disks; wrap each in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 1 hour and up to 1 day. Once chilled, roll out the dough on a lightly floured surface until it is large enough to fill a 9-inch pie plate. Carefully transfer the dough to the pie plate and nestle into place. Leave 1-inch of overhang (if there’s a great deal of overhang, trim), then fold edges of the dough under and crimp.

Pre-bake the crust: To avoid a soggy pie, prebake the crust on 400 F: Using a fork, lightly prick the bottom of the crust. Take a sheet of aluminum foil and layer it on top of the pie crust, gently nudging it down so it’s snug on the bottom and the sides. Fill the  foil-covered crust with dried beans or pie weights to hold it in place. Bake for 15 minutes. Remove from the oven and remove pie weights/beans and foil. Brush crust with egg yolk to create a moisture seal (again, to prevent sogginess). Decrease the oven to 350 F, and place back in the oven to dry out further, another 5 minutes.

Make the filling: Finely grate the zest of one of the grapefruits (about 1 teaspoon loosely grated zest), and set aside. Segment the grapefruits: trim off the top and bottom so each end is flat. Peel the fruit by placing the tip of a sharp knife just inside the border where the pith meets the pulp and slicing down along the curvature of the fruit. Repeat until whole fruit’s been peeled. Then, over a bowl to catch the juice, gently cut the segments of pulp with a sharp knife by slicing towards the core as close as possible to the membranes that separate the segments. Preserve the juice. Gently strain the segments, reserving the segments and juice separately (you should have about 1 cup segments and 1/3 cup juice). Whisk the zest and salt into the grapefruit juice.

In a large bowl, whisk the egg whites and yolks together until they’re light and creamy in color, then whisk in the cream and melted butter.

In a medium bowl, mix the sugar, flour and cornmeal together. Add the dry ingredients to the egg mixture in thirds, whisking after each addition. Stir in the grapefruit juice until combined.

Pour the filling into the pie crust. Arrange the grapefruit segments in the custard (they’ll float to the surface as they bake). Transfer the pie to the oven and bake at 350 F until the top has nicely browned and the center jiggles stiffly, 35-45 minutes. Cool completely on a rack, about 20 minutes, before serving.

Comments

  1. Nicole

    I enjoy chess pie but haven't attempted it at home yet. I think you've inspired me to give it a try! I've always been afraid of pie crust, but it's time to get over my fear. (Also, my husband keeps asking for pie, so one of these days I'll need to master it.) Oh, and Oregon Trail, I so loved that.

  2. Sarah

    I love this, Megan. I think a lot about that phrase Michelangelo supposedly scribbled into the margins of his notes: "Ancora imparo." ("I am still learning.") We really are.

    (p.s. So much love for the grapefruit tart with the rye crust, both here and on the kitchn! How generous are you! Thanks, lady. xo)

    1. megang

      Sarah: It literally brightened my week and I couldn't wait to try a riff on the dough ... and obviously, the grapefruit snuck it's way in, too. Tara Weaver and I went walking last week and were talking all about that tart, and your blog, and YOU. Happy week, Sarah. ~m

  3. katy

    I love what you say about teaching, Megan. It's so true that the act of teaching occurs in so many ways, although we tend to think of it as something that can happen only in the classroom. As somebody who has been trying to convey the beauty of Tolstoy's "Anna Karenina" to her students, I can relate to the need to break something down into palatable pieces...

    Perhaps the lesson would have gone better had it been accompanied by some of that delicious looking pie. I like the sound of grapefruit in a pie; somehow, I feel as if it's finally getting its due.

  4. ryan

    Ha! Some of my favorite early school memories were of playing Oregon Trail!

    I think it woulda be athe shame if you had ended up a full time teacher because what you are doing right now is pretty great!

  5. Mary

    Beautiful, Megan! If you ever want to teach again, how about leading a workshop @ 826 Seattle. Molly + Matthew did one there and Delancey has supported it. Teri Hein, the executive director, is wonderful. Sorry for the shameless 826 plug, but couldn't resist.

  6. Paula @ Vintage Kitchen

    Rye and grapefruit, two underused ingredients, in my opinion. I want to try this right away Megan, and see what it tastes like. Only practice can teach, and food shows me that every time, especially when I bake. Wonderful pie!

  7. thelittleloaf

    What a beautiful post. I love that cooking is a constant evolution and learning process. The day we get stuck in a rut cooking is the day we close our eyes to the world.

  8. tea_austen

    You made the chicken! Yay! Poultry success is yours!
    Now will you teach me? :-)

    1. megang

      YES, Tara, I can teach you! It's really so easy. Next time we do one, I'll invite you over!

  9. Amanda @ Once Upon a Recipe

    And what a wonderful thing it is to learn from and teach each other. Especially where food is concerned! :)
    I've never eaten a chess pie, so I'm very intrigued, especially by the grapefruit!

  10. Ella

    Hey! I also wanted to become a teacher as I was younger but now I´ve changed my mind. Spending the rest of my life in a school... no thank you! :-P

    This pie sounds and LOOKS great! I haven´t eaten chess pie before either and I would definitely like to give it a try sometime... especially after your nice post.

    Greetings from la Suède
    Ella

    1. megang

      Hi, Ella-
      Thanks so much for taking the time to leave a comment here. Yes, summers off are always a draw but, as with any job, there are minuses as well. I found the pie wonderful -- some at are table were more on the "mmm, interesting" side of the spectrum, but it's definitely worth sharing and trying on your own. The crust is to die for, and if you like citrus and grapefruit in particular, I think you'll be quite fond of it. Have a wonderful weekend, m

  11. Eileen

    The day after your post, Food52 put up a video, showing how to tell when a roast chicken is done. Coincidence, or a response to your post ~ either way it's good timing. For those people without friends to come show them, here's the link: http://food52.com/blog/5810-how-to-know-when-chicken-is-done

    1. megang

      Oh thanks so much for sharing, Eileen! I hadn't seen it. Wonderful to have visuals (I think you really need that with your first roast chicken!) Enjoy your weekend, m

  12. Hope Johnson

    Huh and Huh! These themes are something I've been thinking about a lot lately. The idea to look at the core competencies of a job and see if they align with your own interests.

    Also, the transformative approach that you were discussing, with the 'cycle of inspiration' was interesting. I've been researching for a journal article about creativity and how it is a transformative process so the idea of 'originality' is a bit of a fallacy, since its based on zillions of years other's creations. 'Everything is a remix' is a good documentary about it. Anyway, thanks for adding to the thoughts in my brainy box and for the delicious pie pictures.

  13. Emily

    Hi Megan,
    I was wondering if that crust recipe is for 2 single crust pies (or 1 double crust)? Normally with that amount of butter, it would be enough for 2 and it seems like enough (I just made it and it's chilling in the fridge right now!), but I just wanted to make sure.

    Thanks so much! Can't wait to eat this!!!

    1. megang

      Hi, Emily- Hope you got it straightened out! Enjoy. ~m

  14. Emily

    Oh wait--so silly of me--I just noticed your note up above--apologies!

  15. Suzanna

    I would like to thank you for the efforts you have put in penning this blog.

    I really hope to view the same high-grade content from you in the future as well.
    In truth, your creative writing abilities has encouraged me to get my very own blog now ;)

  16. Nashville Foundation Pros

    When I originally left a comment I appear to have clicked the -Notify me when new comments are added- checkbox and now each time a comment
    is added I receive 4 emails with the same comment.
    Is there an easy method you can remove me from that service?
    Cheers!

    1. megang

      Oh I'm so sorry! Let me check in with my web guy to see if there's anything we can do. ~Megan

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