Shop Boy's Journey of Culinary Expansion: Pumpkin Pie

My pop (aka grandfather) likes to keep busy. Some would describe him as being unable to sit still.

Despite this little fact, he is retired.

Now, when most people think of retirement they automatically think of relaxing, maybe some travelling, or doing things that they have always dreamt about, but never gotten around to.

My pop however turned his entire back yard, the side yard and I believe, part of his neighbours yard, into a farm.

Now for him, this isn’t strange. He used to farm produce, and then began a wholesale fruit and vegetable business, before retiring and going full circle and farming his yard.

How does this fit with my culinary expansion? Well, every time I go and visit him he takes me outside and picks whatever he has. The most recent trip awarded me with a pumpkin.

Wanting to break away from the usual business of pumpkin soup, pumpkin and fetta pizza and boring old steamed vegies, I decided to look through my cookbooks to find a new recipe.

After a short look over the index of two different books I had found my dream dish, Pumpkin Pie. My friend Amy-May had always talked about how awesome it tasted and that teamed with the fact that I enjoy making tarts and love Jamie Oliver (it is his recipe, from Jamie does…) meant I immediately had to make the dish.

I entered the kitchen with great hesitation, thinking that my skills were not great enough to master what was ahead. I was pleasantly surprised by how easy it was.

My main concern was for the shortcrust pastry. In my previous experiences, I have never been able to get it just right. The pastry is either too short and crumbly, too chewy or too poorly worked over with a rolling pin causing it to have cracks that cause tarts and pies to become sandwiches of filling and pastry instead.

This recipe is hands down, the best shortcrust pastry recipe I have ever encountered and eaten. It is perfectly malleable, melts away when you bite it and, most importantly, is completely delicious.

With the pastry sorted, I got to work on the filling. It is so, ridiculously easy; you simply have to put all the ingredients, except the eggs, into a saucepan until the pumpkin was cooked before blitzing to a pulp and whisking through eggs when the mixture had cooled. Hardly rocket science, and that is why I love Jamie.

Upon opening the oven I was welcomed by a gust of the most intoxicatingly beautiful scent of Pumpkin Pie and knew that I needn’t worry about knowing what love is, like Foreigner do, as if all else fails…Pumpkin Pie can explain it adequately.

Another big yes for Jamie and his recipes.