Wednesday, March 19, 2008

Checkmate.

I was contemplating what dessert to make for an Easter get together, and I've decided that I want to try my hand at making a lemon chess pie. Now, I've eaten lemon chess pie any number of times, but never made one. I've been looking at recipes online and in cookbooks and I'm totally stumped by the fact that the majority of lemon chess pie recipes I've found call for corn meal in the filling. How does that not make for a totally gritty pie? At first I thought it was a misprint for corn starch, or even for corn syrup, but no, it's always corn meal. Even recipes online that purport to be Bill Clinton's favorite lemon chess pie call for corn meal. Maybe they mean some kind of magically super finely ground corn meal? Has anyone out there ever actually made such a thing? Also, do y'all think it is acceptable to use a graham cracker crust? I just think that would be so nice for a change, but I don't know if that tampers with the essence of chess pie....

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I feel a little bit like the Pie Odyssey Stalker by commenting on yet another post. Anyway, I was reading pie recipes last night in Paula Deen's dessert cookbook, and her lemon chess pie recipe specifies "water-ground white or yellow cornmeal." Maybe water-ground is finer?

But, if you think cornmeal is weird, you should check out her recipe for grits pie. It looks like a buttermilk pie with cooked grits mixed in. I'm going to try it.

Ellen said...

I had this great image of you with your ear pressed to a glass pie plate held against the wall. But maybe that would be the Pie Odyssey Eavesdropper...

Hmmmmm, water ground. I think I'm definately going to have to spend some quality time at the grocery store inspecting corn meal this weekend.

Grits pie sounds unreal...part of what is so lovely about buttermilk pie is its smoothness. What quantity of grits are we talking? Carly, you have to send a picture of the pie when you make it.