Kitchen Experiments

If you're reading this, welcome. This is my first attempt at blogging. Mister suggested I started documenting my daily weirdness.

I'm a do-er. I'm one of those weirdos that can Not sit still. Good thing is that Mister is the same way. So we are a busy hive.

Last weekend, Mister decided to make some wine.

A note on homemade wine: It's good. It's easy. And you should make some. Because it's "ho-made" there aren't any chemical preservatives, nitrates or other general ick. And honestly, the shit fucks you up.

So Mister decides to make a batch of Raisin Wine. A leftover of the process is 6 pounds of cooked raisins.

I hate wasting anything. Food most of all. What can you do with 6 pounds of raisins?

I consulted some cook books and hit on a solution. In the LOST RECIPES issue of Cooks Illustrated I found: Rice Custard Pie I'll post the full recipe at the end.

Wanna see how it worked out? I took pictures!


Here's the first step. I needed to make a sweetened puree of the raisins. Using a basic 2 to 1 ratio; I added 3 pounds of sugar to the raisins and cooked those buggers down!

I'm a firm believer in Booze. Booze in everything. In went the Berentzen Apfelkorn! Love this stuff. I added about a 2 cups.


When it cooked down about an hour. I got the old stick blender and pureed.



Now that the puree is finished, it's on to the rice custard. Rice Custard can be very easy. Essentially, using a starchy rice, 6 cups of milk to 2 cups of rice.


When the rice is cooked through, you'll add in 4 to 6 eggs, a bit of sugar and cook until it's to the right consistency.



This is what the finished custard should look like...


Are we done yet? Nope! On to the pie crust. I do the old fashioned cold butter cut into a flour and salt mixture. Mind you, I'm not much of machine person. No food processor here; I use a pastry cutter and do it manually. Works great. Add a little ice water a table spoon at a time; and bingo.


Here's what it looks like when I got the crust into the pie plate.



Next step is a adding a layer of the raisin puree to fill the crust. Just enough to cover; about a half inch.



Then pour the rice custard on top of that.



And in the oven it goes.


And here is the finished pie!



I didn't take any snaps of us eating the pie. It's a very old fashioned kinda recipe. The flavor is quite different from what the modern palate is used to tasting. I recommend it if you're looking for something different. If I wasn't looking to use up some raisins, I would make a different fruit puree. I think an apricot puree would match very well.


Here's the recipe from Cooks. I'm an experienced baker, so every recipe is guide versus gospel. I made tweaks and changes along the way. Mind you, I also made a hella lot of puree because this whole exercise was "how do I use up 6 pounds of cooked raisins"?

Puree

1 cup pitted prunes (I didn't use these at all)
1/2 cups sugar
3 tablespoons brandy (I used 2 cups Berentzen Apfelkorn)

Custard

1/2 cup medium grain rice
1/2 teaspoon salt
4 cups whole milk
1 cup sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
4 large eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla