What kind of pie?

Corn on the cob and sweet potatoes—two foods that most European-types I know don't love (my spouse is an exception). My father-in-law calls both "pig fodder," but then again he will eat polenta no prob, but then again he is from Milan so I guess eating swine chow is okay if it's dried and milled. I'm also pretty sure that it's dried corn that they pump through the feeding tubes (calorie-bongs?) used in fattening waterfowl livers for foie gras, and so the French are consumers of lots of corn as well, if somewhat less directly than the Milanese. But fresh sweet corn is a wonderful thing, and if the Europeans aren't eating it, then fine—there's more for us. This is exactly what Karen said when I told her that a post on sweet potato pie would not be of much interest to her yankee-expat followers who are cooking for European spouses and their families.

As far as flavor is concerned, I don't think it really matters which variety of sweet potato gets used, but the kind that is bright orange is the classic. A sweet potato pie made from a white- or yellow- flesh variety would look pretty non-traditional. Since these potatoes come in some pretty irregular shapes (usually very thick in the middle, tapering to narrow ends), I start by cutting them into uniform sized pieces that will cook in the same amount of time. I drop them into boiling, salted water and simmer them until they're done—about 15 minutes, depending on how big the pieces are. Then I drain them in a colander, and while they're hot, I remove the skins and run them through a potato ricer. This will leave a small amount of fiber-y stuff in the mash, which I prefer to eliminate by running it through a food mill (this can be done after the mash has cooled).

A classic American pie crust is your basic short crust with the difference that the butter is not quite fully incorporated into the flour. The tiny chunks of butter flatten out between the flattened bits of dough, and this is what makes a flaky (rather than crumbly) crust. I make mine with about two sticks of cold butter (roughly 400 grams, salted of course) which I cut into a good measure of flour (three cups? Sounds about right.) with a pastry knife (which is really a sort of round-bottom potato masher) until the butter is almost but not quite fully blended with the flour. Then I mix in some really cold water (about a quarter-cup) with a wooden spoon just until the moisture is uniformly distributed and the dough actually resembles a dough. Then I wrap the dough in plastic and throw it in the fridge for a couple of hours. Then I roll out a huge circle of dough—there's much more than what's needed for one pie, so I cut off all but a generous inch of overhang after putting it in the pie tin. The rest can go back in the fridge for some other creation. The overhang gets rolled and crimped and I prick the bottom a few times with a fork. Then this gets covered with plastic again and thrown in the fridge. I know that this sounds pretty complicated and pie crusts can be pretty intimidating at first, but you just have to make it a few times and then it's not such a big deal.

My pie filling is a can of sweetened condensed milk (I think the standard size in the U.S. is about 7 or 8 ounces), three eggs, a bit of ground ginger (the dried stuff, not the fresh stuff), a bit of nutmeg, and about two cups of the cooled sweet potato mash. After homogenizing all this you'll need to add sugar—how much is needed will depend on how sweet the potatoes were (and there's quite a lot of variation in sugar content) and how sweet you like your pie. I like using superfine (baker's) sugar for this, but I suppose regular granulated would work, too. Need a rough estimate for starters? Maybe about half a cup. I typically add a bit more sugar than what tastes right when I'm making the filling, since I find that the final product usually ends up not sweet enough when I add sugar just to taste.

The filling should now be thick but pourable. Remove the crust from the fridge, fill and bake at 350°F (175°C) for about 45 minutes to an hour until the crust is golden and the filling is puffing up but not quite browning. If you have extra filling, I suggest filling a couple of ramekins and baking them along with the pie—this makes a nice pudding—but the cooking time may be a little different from the pie.

This is a pie that should be thoroughly cooled before serving (otherwise the spices you added may be overpowering), so making this pie the day before the big dinner is both wise and gets one more dessert out of the way.