Lemon Chess Pie

I haven’t made lemon chess pie in years.

The other day I asked my mother if she could find the recipe. And she could; stuck away in a drawer, exactly where she thought she’d put it. In a photocopy of an article in the Fort Wayne Journal about Murphy’s At The River. We picked that photocopy up one day in 1986 when we made a journey to the restaurant, as people did, to eat lemon chess pie.

If you have never had lemon chess pie, it is worth a long, long drive.

My other memory of that day is that we rode a small cable ferry across the Kentucky River. The ferryman was missing a family event— a wedding reception, I think— and his nieces had brought him a plate of fried chicken and fixings from the party. And he was surprised because he remembered the nieces as toddlers. And there they were, big.

The green river slipped away under the boat as it chugged across, and when we tried to pay the ferryman, he said 

“That’s okay. I was going across anyway.”

Which was so perfectly poetic that, being the right age, I wrote a poem about it. I’ve mercifully lost the poem, but below is the recipe for lemon chess pie.

According to the Journal article, the recipe was modernized by restaurateur Dorothy Rhea Murphy, from one handed down to her by her grandmother, Lucretia Curd King. The ingredients look pretty alarming… but they don't seem to have done Mrs. Murphy any harm. She lived well into her nineties. 

Lemon Chess Pie

2 whole eggs plus 4 yolks

1 cup white sugar

4 T melted butter

1/4 cup heavy cream

1 T yellow cornmeal

1 T flour

4 T lemon juice

1 T grated lemon rind

1 9” unbaked pie crust

Preheat oven to 350 degrees

Beat eggs, yolks & sugar together at high speed for 2 minutes. Add butter

and cream; beat again at high speed for 2 minutes. 

Add cornmeal, flour, lemon

juice & rind. Mix well. 

Pour into pie crust and bake 30 minutes. Allow pie to cool to room temperature before serving.

Recipe: Spiedies

Friends, I am about to do what no upstate New Yorker does lightly. I am about to share my spiedies recipe.

Understand, this isn't my actual spiedies recipe. This is an approximation of how I make 'em, jotted down for the first time ever during a recent spiedies-making episode.

The main principles which my method follows are... wait, what?

What are spiedies?

Oh. Spiedies (pronounced "speedies") are a regional dish found within roughly 60 miles of Binghamton, New York. They are chunks of spiced, marinated meat, eaten in a sandwich. When I was a kid I thought they were called "spiedies" because they cook very quickly. Now that I am grown up and have Google, I'm able to find out that nobody knows why they're called spiedies. When I was a kid they were almost always made with beef. Nowadays I think they are more often made with chicken.

Anyway, spiedies are not good for you, but I like to think my version is less-not-good-for-you than others.

Warning: Spiedies are addictive.

Ingredients:

2 large garlic cloves

1 lb (450 grams) organic free-range boneless, skinless chicken breast

1/2 cup olive oil (Metric conversion table for recipes)

1/4 cup red wine vinegar

1/4 tsp lime juice

1/4 tsp turmeric

pinch fresh ground black pepper

1/8 tsp Jane's Crazy Mixed-Up Salt (optional)

1 T¹ fresh basil (about 8 leaves)

1 T fresh sage

1 tsp fresh oregano

4 spearmint leaves and 2 peppermint leaves (or 1 tsp combined fresh mint)

Chop the garlic and set it aside to rest.

Combine the olive oil, vinegar and lime juice in a large measuring cup. Add the turmeric, pepper, and salt. Set aside.

Chop the herbs; set aside.

Remove all fat from the chicken and cut it into chunks or strips no more than 1" in size. Put the chicken in a bowl or plastic bag.

Beat the oil, vinegar and lime juice briskly with a fork for 1 minute. It will separate immediately, but at least you tried. Add the garlic; stir. Add the herbs and stir thoroughly.

Pour this marinade over the chicken and stir well. Marinate in the refrigerator for 24 hours or more, stirring occasionally in a vain effort to get the oil and vinegar back together.

The olive oil may solidify in the fridge. For this reason, I prefer to use a plastic bag. Frequent vigorous (but not too vigorous) squishing of the plastic bag can reliquefy the oil.

Once the spiedies are marinated, remove them from the liquid. Fry them. (The oil will tend to splatter, so you might want to cover the pan. Alternatively, they can be skewered and cooked outdoors on a grill.) Drain on paper towels or paper bags, and serve in your preferred sandwich wrapper. I like to use toasted Italian bread. Traditionally nothing joins the spiedies inside the sandwich. It's just spiedies and bread. 
 

Alternative for those avoiding starches: Cut each chicken breast into three or four thin cutlets, instead of chunks or strips. Marinate. Then, instead of frying, spread the marinated spiedies on a cookie sheet and bake in a 350 degree oven for 20-25 minutes, or until cooked through. (Slice and make sure there's no pink inside.)

The fresh herbs, by the way, are why I prefer to make spiedies in the summer. But don't go out and buy all that stuff if you haven't got it growing. And if you have thyme, which grows wild in much of upstate New York, use that too. Just use whatever you have, in whatever combination you want. Spiedies are essentially a state of mind.

1 If using dried herbs, use 1/3 as much. 1 T fresh= 1 tsp dried. 1 tsp fresh= 1/3 tsp dried.

Vegetable Dip

 

I can't convince myself this is good for you, even if you use all-organic ingredients. But it is very good, and especially useful as an appetizer or snack for holiday parties.

2/3 cup sour cream

1/3 cup mayonnaise

1 tsp prepared horseradish (or more, if you roll that way)

1 tsp lemon juice

1 scallion, chopped

Jane's Crazy Mixed-Up Salt* to taste

Combine the sour cream and mayonnaise, mix well. Stir in the lemon juice and horseradish. Add salt to taste. Top with chopped scallions.

Serve with carrot sticks, celery sticks, sliced tomatoes and cucumbers, etc.

*No, I don't work for the company, but this stuff is great! And all-natural.

Chana Masala

This is one of my favorite winter recipes... quick and easy to make, and one of the few Indian dishes I've found that will come out tasting right using ingredients available at yr avg American supermarket. With rice and a salad, it serves two to four people.

1 T olive oil

1 onion, minced

3 cloves garlic, minced

1/4 cup tomato sauce

1 15.5 oz (439 g) can organic* chickpeas-- do not drain

2 tsp curry powder

1/2 tsp turmeric

1/8 tsp cinnamon

pepper to taste

a pinch of salt (optional)

juice of 1/2 lime

(To be served over basmati rice, with chutney and chopped purple onion as garnishes.)

Put the olive oil in a large frying pan over medium heat. Saute the onions until translucent. Add garlic, lower the heat, and saute one minute. Add the tomato sauce.

(You'll want the heat to be low enough, before you add the tomato sauce, that you don't get little orange splatters of tomato sauce all over your nice clean stove.)

Stir. Add the spices and salt. Add the chickpeas, including the liquid from the can. Add the lime juice.

Cook, uncovered, until liquid thickens to a sauce. (About 15-20 minutes.)

*because they don't contain disodium EDTA