I Love Desserts: Pie Cookbook

the appetizer:

Learn pie-making, from basic to advanced, in Pie by Angela Boggiano, including recipes for Vegetable and Rice Picnic Pie; Eccles Cakes; and Apple Pie with Cheese Pastry.

I Love Desserts

Pie

by Angela Boggiano

Click to Buy Pie

Pie, the ultimate comfort food, seems tailor made to bring a little solace to today's dinner tables. After all, whether savory or sweet, pie offers up an ingenious idea of allowing meat, vegetables or fruits to develop their finest flavors by being cooked in their own juices encased in a delicious pastry crust. And a talented pie maker can transform even the most frugal filling into a wonderful treat.

In Pie British food writer Angela Boggiano offers up 100 sophisticated recipes for all sorts of pies, from braised lamb shank to chicken, leek, and tarragon; from basic meat and potato to deep egg and bacon; and from chocolate and pecan to apple and blackberry.

Boggiano's ode to pie includes many traditional British varieties including steak and kidney pie, treacle pie (Harry Potter's favorite) and Cornish pasties, but she also includes recipes for Italian torta (vegetable and rice picnic pie) empanada gallega (spanish pepper and chorizo pie), Greek spinach pie and Russian fish pie. There are round pies, and rectangular pies, large pies and many varieties of handpies, some of which are perfect to pack for lunch or a picnic, and others such as asparagus turnovers will look lovely as a dinner party. For more intrepid pie makers, Boggiano also has a section on "noble" pies, where the ingredient list includes a hot stock that turns to jelly when cold, and are often made in beautiful molds that bring elegance to a special event.

Boggiano believes that making pastry crust isn't difficult as long as you follow her three golden rules 1) handle it lightly 2) keep it cool and 3) bake it in a hot oven. Her pastry recipes even include wheat-free pastry, so that those with gluten allergies can still enjoy the wonder of pie.

Beautifully photographed, Pie will envelop your senses so that flour and shortening make you feel.mat least momentarily.mthat all is right with the world.

About the Author

Angela started out as a food writer for women's magazines fifteen years ago before moving to BBC Good Food and Vegetarian Good Food Magazine as Food Editor where she worked for 4 years. After a break travelling round India, South East Asia, China and Australasia, she returned to the world of freelance food stylist/writer and set up Fork (www.forkltd.co.uk) with partners Silvana Franco and Jenny White.

Angela has written features for BBC Good Food, Olive, Delicious, Food and Travel, Sainsbury's The Magazine, She, Waitrose Seasons and Easy Living magazine. Angela is also author of the Italian Ingredients Cookbook published in 1997.