Pie Spy - Freeport Bakery and the Knish Delish

One of Pie Spy’s favorite places in the whole Sacramento Valley is Freeport Bakery at 2966 Freeport Boulevard (www.freeportbakery.com). We here at SacPie are not so into “cute” as a lifestyle choice, so that’s not why we love Freeport Bakery (although you could not ask for a more charming bakery storefront). We love it because their commitment to excellence is evident everywhere you look, and in every bite. We love it because it is a place where you can not only buy delicious things to eat but you can sit down and eat them, with real plates, knives, and forks, and enjoy a good cup of coffee too. We love it because it has clearly and deservedly become a mainstay of its neighborhood. We love it because it is a short walk from our house. Of course, we love it for the beautifully made, proudly displayed, and extravagant pies on offer. We will get to the pies soon.

But they really hooked us with the knishes.

Freeport Bakery’s take on vegetable knishes is a total departure from anything you may have previously consumed that called itself knish. The conventional deli knish we have experienced only comes in one variety – potato. PieSpy has scoped them in local deli cases - brownish bricks that look like square corn dogs – the kind you’re supposed to dip in mustard. They've been frozen too long, and maybe thawed out too soon. They aren’t appetizing to look at, and feel pretty much like bricks once they are ingested.

Scan the web for knish data and you will find recipes for fish, pastrami, cheese, chicken, and other hearty fillings, surrounded by dough made with chicken fat, or with puff pastry, Kosher, not Kosher, and on and on. Many of these seem beyond substantial and into ‘dense.’ Never having had the experience of knishes in a genuine New York Jewish deli, I cannot say what makes a store-bought knish authentic (although a tiny voice inside tells me the brown bricks are NOT). And never having had a Jewish grandmother, I have no experience of home-made knishes either.

Anyone out there making their own knishes at home?

At Freeport Bakery, if you ask for the knish, what you will receive is a glorious, ethereal, miniature self-contained vegetable pie on a small china plate. You will not see them in the bakery cases, but usually one is displayed on the counter to the left of the entry door. They cost about $3.95 each. Just ask. Your odds of success will be higher if you get there earlier in the day.

I have not inquired as to whether these knishes are kosher, but I'm sure someone at the counter can let you know, if you are interested.

You can re-heat them for a minute or so in the Bakery’s microwave, and then enjoy them hot right there. I have tried many times to get the temperature just right with their 1980's-era nuker, but the filling becomes either scalding hot or remains too cold, and you don't want to ruin that beautiful pastry crust. Maybe you will have better luck if you can take a few home with you cold, and heat them up later in a 300-degree oven. Be advised, though, even your best mustard would be an insult on this gorgeous little pie. It needs no extras.

The crust is both decorative and appetizing; firm enough to hold the insides in, but light and buttery. A little cutout leaf or nut made of dough adorns the egg-glazed top. The knish has the look and aroma of a fancy French savory pie. About 3 inches in diameter, it is best enjoyed, and deserves to be enjoyed, on a plate and eaten with a fork. This knish is flaky and too civilized to be eaten while you are driving or – you know who you are – standing over the kitchen sink.

Inside, the knish is filled with an aromatic combination of mashed and finely minced vegetables – potatoes as well as carrots, mushrooms, broccoli, onion (or perhaps leek), and a delicate array of herbs. The filling is velvety yet all the ingredients are identifiable. On the plate, the knish may look small, but it eats big. One knish can be a satisfying breakfast or lunch for one person – decadent, but with vegetables.

Freeport Bakery’s knish will make you want to throw rocks at other knishes commonly on offer in stores. They are so satisfying that you may say, “to hell with baking knishes myself!” If so, make sure you get to Freeport Bakery before I do. Or call ahead and request a special order.

Pie Spy - Fat Apple's Restaurant & Bakery

A road trip to Berkelely on the last Friday of January necessitated some Pie Spying.

In San Francisco Magazine's January issue, we had read a short blurb about Fat Apple's. Fat Apple's is a breakfast-lunch spot - actually two spots: the home location at 7525 Fairmount Avenue in El Cerrito, and 1346 Martin Luther King, Jr. Way in Berkeley. They have a range of salad, soup, sandwiches, and hot entrees, but what really hooks us is the full bakery case. Fat Apple's makes scones, cookies, pastries, cakes, and you-know-what, under the masterful watch of Hildegard Marshall, the founder and owner.

At the Fairmount Avenue location, the skylit, barrel-vaulted interior (a former grocery store, our hostess told us) is dominated by a very large, square oven situated in the very middle of the building. The oven is probably close to 15 feet on each side. Our hostess explained that this oven runs 24-7 during the holidays, when the place pumps out pies non-stop (especially pumpkin). Although it was well past the peak of lunch hour (and traditional bakers' hours) when we visited, there were still at least a dozen workers visibly hustling around the place. By the way, pie crusts are made with butter, and also with love and skill.

There is a diner counter and tables for 80 or so people. Reproductions of Wayne Thiebaud pictures, as well as other, temporary exhibits by artists, adorn the walls.

Fat Apple's most widely acclaimed favorite pie is the ollalieberry, shown below:

You can choose from several flavors of pie, if ollalieberry is not what you came for. There was a slice of lofty lemon meringue going by as we ordered lunch. The chocolate creme pie looked as dense and dark as chocolate mousse. The apple pie was puffed up, and my imagination ran wild. Just for the sake of research, we ordered a slice of the cherry pie after a filling lunch of spinach salad and a portobello mushroom sandwich (both pretty good).

Pie by the slice is $4.25. You could purchase a whole fruit pie there for $17.00 (and be very happy).

The pie slice comes unadorned with whip or ice cream. Which is good, because usually I forget to request that these be deleted. Despite the neon-red color of the filling, I could tell this was no institutional pie. The cherries were tart, firm, and still individually imbued with flavor. The red matrix in which they floated was pleasantly sweet and a little bit thick, but never gooey, chemical, or dominating. It was definitely more cherries than red gel. I could tell that the crust had been made with butter because of the distinct flavor note as well as the flaky, light texture as I broke it - in my delicate way - with the fork. I had to increase the shutter speed on my camera, because this piece was of the stealthy, now-you-see-it-now-you-don't variety. It disappeared in what seems like a flash!

The finishing touch to our Fat Apple's experience was the receipt. Pie Spy finds wisdom in unexpected places. Be sure to read below the bottom line. That's what I'm talking about.

Pie of the Week - Vegetable Pot Pie

It's WINTER. It's RAINING. It's time for Pie That's A Meal.

Vegetable Pot Pie may be a cure, or at least a palliative, for the Sacramento Winter Blahs.

Unfortunately, I have not yet found a local sit-down eatery that serves vegetarian pot pies. You can buy individual-sized ones at the Sacramento Natural Foods Co-Op (www.sacfoodscoop.com) to bring home and heat up in your own oven, if that's convenient for you. But it's not difficult to prepare your own with what you already have in the house.

Winter vegetables like potatoes, butternut squash, turnips, and carrots are abundant here in the Sacramento Valley in the winter farmer's market stands. They are also extremely durable, which means you can take your time figuring out how and when you're going to eat them. The only down side of root vegetables and squashes is that they are bland as baby food when prepared by themselves. This is one reason a lot of people claim to detest them. Our Pie of the Week aims for an alchemical combination of these nutritious and plentiful staples in a hearty, double-crust savory pie. In addition to staving off the Blahs, it may also make converts of the non-root-vegetable-eating members of your household. Paired with a fresh green salad, this makes a satisfying dinner or brunch item. A side of cranberry sauce might make you come out of your funk and feel festive.

If you search the web for vegetable pot pie recipes, as I have, you will find a bazillion of them. Some include beans, or cheese, or noodles, or spinach, or tofu. You can customize the filling in a number of distinct but satisfying ways. Whatever your choices, 6 cups of filling is a good target amount. The common denominator of these recipes is that you pre-cook small pieces of whatever vegetables you plan to put in the pie, coat the vegetables with a little flour, and then add broth and a milk to create the sauce - or gravy- that is one of the most joyous sensations about eating a pot pie. We're doing this one vegan, but you could substitute real milk and butter where I've used soy milk and Earth Balance.

Note: there will be quite a lot of peeling and chopping - maybe 30 minutes' worth. But it is RAINING, and you are not going outdoors anyway.

You could certainly opt for a less-crusty version of this by spooning the prepared vegetable filling into individual pots (or one big pie dish) and doing only a top crust. But to me that sounds like it might result in messy cleanup work (both the pots and the bottom of the oven). SacPie rocks the double crust. We need those calories for hibernation, and we never, ever want to clean the oven.

This recipe is a riff on the Food Network recipe from Aida Mollenkamp (http://www.foodnetwork.com/). I had some butternut squash, already steamed, in the fridge. I had turnips, a leek, some Yukon Gold potatoes, celery, carrots, garlic, and a big bunch of Italian parsely. I had broth from cooking beet greens and some dried porcini mushrooms to infuse the broth. I did not include fennel or peas or chives, but only because I didn't have them in the house when it was time to make pie.

Ingredients:

1 T unsalted butter or Earth Balance

2 small heads of fennel (or 2 sticks of celery), finely chopped (about 3 c.) - OPTIONAL

1/2 medium yellow onion (or one leek), finely chopped
2 medium carrots, peeled and finely chopped (about 2/3 c.)
12 oz. fresh mushrooms, sliced (about 5 c.)
1 small Russet potato peeled and diced small (about 2 1/2 c.)
1 small turnip peeled and diced small

1/4 c. all-purpose flour
1 c. vegetable broth (warmed)
1 c. milk (or plain soy milk)
1 c. frozen baby green peas - OPTIONAL
1/4 c. thinly sliced fresh chives (or whatever your herb choices are)
1/4 c. parsley
1 T white vinegar
1 large egg yolk, beaten with 2 tsp of water - OPTIONAL
1 double-crust pie dough

OTHER OPTIONAL HERBS: sage, thyme, bay leaf, chipotle powder, rosemary

Directions:

Heat the oven to 400 degrees and arrange a rack in the middle.

Melt the butter/EB over medium heat in a 3- to 4- quart pan. When it foams, add the fennel, onion, carrots, (garlic, leek, celery, turnip) and cook until just soft and onions are translucent. Add mushrooms and potato (also bay leaf and/or rosemary sprig, if using. These should be removed when the filling is finished cooking). Season well with salt and pepper, stirring to coat. Remember that root vegetables tend to use more salt. Cook, stirring rarely, until mushrooms have let off water and are shrunken, about 6 min.

Sprinkle flour over the vegetables, stir to coat, and cook until the raw flavor is gone, about 1-2 min. Add broth and milk gradually, stirring constantly until the mixture is smooth. Bring to simmer over medium heat, cooking until slightly thickened, about 5 min. Remove from heat. Add peas (or canned beans or edamame), herbs, and vinegar, stirring to coat. Taste to correct seasoning.

Pour the filling into a 9-in pie crust. Place the top crust over filling and seal. Brush dough with egg wash (optional) and cut slits in the top crust. Bake until crust is golden brown and mixture is bubbling, about 25-30 min. Let stand at least 5 min before serving. I know it will be hard to wait that long, but restrain yourself.

I baked this pie for about 40 minutes in order to get a browner crust. One of the things I've learned about the palm oil shortening crust recipe is that it is slow to brown, but difficult to overcook.

The pie filling cooks to a compact, moist endpoint. Individual chunks of potato, squash, turnip, and carrot are still identifiable but blend creamily with the gravy. The taste was as close as I've come yet to the filling in Freeport Bakery's knishes (http://www.freeportbakery.com/), which are elegant and delicious (and the subject of a future blog). One generous slice of this pie and a side of steamed broccoli was a substantial, comforting dinner. I nearly forgot that it was raining.

Let me know how the Winter Blahs, and the winning of the hearts, minds, and palates of your vegetable objectors is going after you make this.

Pie Spy - Dad's Kitchen

I have two stories to relate about Dad's Kitchen and its pie offerings. Check out http://www.ediblesacramento.com/content/index.php/winter-2009/comfort-food.htm for a capsule review of what Dad's is all about.

Dad's Kitchen, at 2968 Freeport Boulevard in Sacramento, was written up in a local publication last summer for its excellent pies. I was not a Pie Spy then, but already a pie snob, so I had to check this out. It was the peak of fresh summer fruit season. Pies at Dad's were reportedly made in-house by a lady named Anne, and the word was that you had to get there early in the day if you wanted to sample her wares. How could this not be good?

Here's how: In July, I ordered a slice of Anne's pie to go, while I was still having lunch, from my very charmingly inked server. Lunch was very filling, mainly because we inhaled the Spuds of Joy, so I decided to save the pie (SOUR CHERRY!) for later. Apparently it took a few attempts to convey the pie order to the kitchen, during which several minutes went by. First, a generously sized slice of pie a la mode was delivered on a plate to the table. We hailed our charming server and reminded her that we had asked for the pie to go. The plate disappeared immediately into the kitchen, and we waited several more minutes. When the box finally arrived , we decided to check and take a look at it. Recall July? Hot enough to fry an egg on the sidewalk? The kitchen staff decided had scraped the original slice from the plate to a cardboard go-box ice cream and all, on one of the hottest days of the year. Upon discovering this lapse in culinary judgment, we returned the box to a server and explained, no ice cream. Whereupon several more interminable minutes went by, until at last, a dry slice of pie materialized. This slice was about half the size of the original piece, and in addition, it had sort of been mashed into the box. By then, a half-hour had elapsed since we ordered the pie, and I was questioning whether I really wanted it at all.

And to top that all off, it was a $7.00 piece of pie.

I will say that the sour cherry pie was very fresh, not overly sweet, and not gelatinous with thickener. And sour cherry pie is not all that common in restaurants, so just having it as a choice really scored some points with me. The crust was buttery, brown, and - where intact - very flaky and sturdy enough to stand up to the cooked fruit. But worth all the trouble?

Sheesh! This experience is one reason that SacPie was born. We can all improve upon pie experiences like that one, and you can have an entire, fresh pie, all to YOURSELF, for $7.00!

Pie Spy's more recent experience at Dad's Kitchen was an improvement. [Note: In addition to the fruit pie on offer, there are also two varieties of pot pie on the lunch menu. You could conceivably eat pie for your entree and pie for dessert. Not many places can offer you that!]

This past week, the fruit pie was apple. We ordered a piece as we were finishing lunch but decided to dine in with it. We experienced the same difficulty with getting the order placed. When you are waiting for a slice of pie, minutes seem much longer than, say, when you are waiting for a bus in the rain. One reason the order was taking so long, we later learned, is that they warm it up in a standard oven before serving it - nice on a cold Saturday.

The pie arrived with the very smooth and lovely vanilla bean ice cream in a separate bowl. I had forgotten to ask them to hold the ice cream, but now I'm glad I got it. Three compact little scoops of the stuff - a dessert serving all by itself. Apple pie is one of my favorites. This one had very thinly sliced apples, a full double crust, no other embellishments. As you can see, it was good looking as well - straightforward, like-home pie. There was some sugary, spicy brown stuff mixed into the apple filling, and the texture and flavor were pleasant. Just enough cinnamon to enhance the apple without overpowering it. I don't usually eat ice cream with my pie, and least of all vanilla, but the freshness of both made for a wonderful combination. It was still $7, but it seemed like money well spent this time.

The pies are now made in-house by one of Dad's servers, Maria. Anne has apparently moved on. Maria uses all butter for her crust. Be advised that there is only one flavor of fruit pie available each day, and if you want it, I would advise that you get there before 2 or 3 in the afternoon (Maria has other things to do besides bake pies all day) and order it before you start the second half of your sandwich (or pot pie), unless you don't mind lingering. Fruit pies are not offered on the printed menu; you'll need to ask your server, and be sure to tell them that the Pie Spy sent you.