Spoon & Shutter

From Susan: Last night was a pretty typical Saturday evening for us. We had dinner with good friends in their home – which as much as we enjoy restaurants, is our preferred way to enjoy a delicious meal and good conversation. I offered to bring dessert, and because our host was serving lasagna (a lighter, fresh-flavored recipe from Ina Garten featuring turkey sausage, goat cheese and fresh spinach), I thought I’d make something with fruit. But I wanted it to be warm and comforting, befitting the cold, blustery night.

Too lazy to make a traditional pie, I browsed recipes for crisps and crumbles, finally settling on Pear Pandowdy from Nigella Lawson‘s latest book, Nigella Kitchen. According to thefreedictionary.com, a pandowdy is “sliced fruit baked with sugar and spices in a deep dish, with a thick top crust.” I can’t improve on Nigella’s marvelous description in her introduction to the recipe: “A pandowdy is one of those wonderful American down-home terms for a kind of pie that is ramshackle and homespun, and this is something I am always happy to live down to.” And I especially love that it is baked in a cast-iron skillet. Of course the British culinary goddess suggests serving this with a lashing of heavy cream; I opted instead for Cabot low-fat Greek vanilla yogurt. If you haven’t tried this new offering from the famous makers of cheddar cheese, I suggest  you do – with the lush richness of a full-fat yogurt and flecks of vanilla bean it has become my favorite.

Pear Pandowdy

Serves 6

4 Bartlett pears (our market didn’t have them so I used a combination of Anjou and Bosc)

2 Golden Delicious apples (I used Granny Smiths)

3 tablespoons soft unsalted butter

1/4 cup sugar, plus 1/2 teaspoon for sprinkling

finely grated zest of 1 lemon

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

pinch of salt

7 tablespoons very cold butter, cut into 1/2 inch cubes (Nigella’s recipe calls for 5 tablespoons butter and 2 tablespoons vegetable shortening, but I don’t keep Crisco in the house so used all butter.)

1/2 cup cold whole milk

Preheat the oven to 400.

Peel the pears and apples, then quarter them, slice out the cores, and cut into 3/4-inch pieces, dropping them into a bowl as you go.

Using a cast-iron skillet or other frying pan that can go into the oven later, melt the 3 tablespoons soft butter over medium heat, then add the fruit, sugar and lemon zest and cook over a lowish heat, stirring occasionally, for 10 minutes, by which time some of the fruit will have begun to caramelize gently. Take off the heat while you get on with the pastry.

Put the flour and salt into the bowl of a freestanding mixer fitted with the flat paddle; add the very cold cubed butter and slowly mix to cut the flat into the flour. Still with the motor running and the paddle running slowly, add the milk a little at a time, just so that the dough binds, then remove from the bowl, squish it together with your hands, and drop it into a lightly floured surface ready to roll out.

Bring the pan of cooked fruit nearby (but not so near as to warm the dough), and roll out the dough until you have a rough circle about the diameter of the skillet. Drape the dough circle on top of the fruit, tucking in the edges a bit, and remember that the ramshackle look of this is the whole point. Make 3 slashes with the tip of a sharp knife, sprinkle with 1/2 teaspoon sugar and bake for 25 minutes – until the crust turns a pale golden color.

Remember that the handle will be searingly hot when you take it out of the oven. This can be reheated nicely – we put it in the warm but turned-off  oven after the lasagna came out.

Adapted from Nigella Kitchen.