Grandma's Pastry

[droqen]

SEE BELOW FOR UPDATED VERSION

Pastry
Mix with fork:

• 5 1/2 cup flour (pastry)
• 1 tble br sugar
• shake or 2 of salt
• 1 tsp b powder

Cut in: (then add to rest)

• 2 cups lard

Mix well and add milk to make 1 cup: (then add to rest)

• Put egg in cup
• Tble of lemon juice (sub vinegar is fine, but smells bad)

[droqen]

Tips:
- Use more salt (I used something like 1 1/2 pinches - terribly precise, I know)
- Brown sugar clumps, regular sugar is OK
- Made it once with skim milk powder instead of whole milk. It was much more dry. Not sure if that was the fault of the powder, or the skim. (Perhaps both?)
- Don't make it so wet that it sticks when rolling

[droqen]

Oops, I forgot the temperature.
Grandma's recipe says bake 10minutes at 425F, then 10minutes at 350F
But she says it's fine to just do 20minutes at somewhere in the middle. (I did 380F and it turned out fine.)

This full amount makes enough for a full batch of this chicken pot pie recipe.

[droqen]

Notes after 2nd make:
- Lay down a dusting of flour before rolling pastry dough out on counter.
- Using the specified dry/wet ingredients, but with skim milk from powder rather than whole milk, it is still too wet.

[droqen]

I think the last time we made a chicken pot pie that was really successful, it wasn't your grandma's recipe. It was one that involved ice water.

^ Try a different recipe next time, maybe.

[droqen]

Found a recipe that has startlingly similar proportions but is more 'modern,' instructions are more detailed, and it uses ice water.

Recipe: https://www.theartofdoingstuff.com/the-pie-dough-recipe-a-crust-of-butter-lard/

MAKES SIX CRUSTS (size unspecified)

Ingredients
5½ cups all purpose flour (660g)
2 teaspoon salt
½ pound lard cold and cubed
½ pound butter cold and cubed
1 tablespoon vinegar
1 egg lightly beaten
Ice Water

Instructions

1. Whisk together flour and salt* then cut in butter and lard with a food processor or pastry blender. Cut dough until it's crumbly but fat pieces are still pea sized or so. (If your food processor is small, you'll have to do this recipe in 2 batches because it'll be too much for your machine)

2. Add your egg and vinegar to a measuring cup and then top it up with ice water until you have 1 cup of liquid.

3. Add liquid to the dry ingredients in a slow stream just until dough comes together. You may not need all the liquid.

4. Dump the contents onto a large piece of plastic wrap then fold the plastic in towards the dough repeatedly until a ball forms. Try not to touch the dough with your warm hands.

5. Divide the dough into 6 balls. (if you made a half recipe, then divide into 3 balls)

6. Wrap dough in plastic and flatten them into discs. Refrigerate for at least half an hour before rolling out. This is also the point that you can put the dough directly in the freezer for using later.

7. When you're ready to make PIE! roll the dough out onto a lightly floured surface with a lightly floured rolling pin. Drop it into your aluminum pie pan, flute the edges and bake however your recipe requires.

*You can add ¼ teaspoon of spice per dough ball.  For instance if you're making the full recipe for 6 balls of dough, you'd add 1.5 tsps of spice to the dough.  Just add it to the dry mixture of flour and salt. Cinnamon, nutmeg and pumpkin spice are good choices for apple or pumpkin pie.  Thyme or celery seed are good choices for savoury pies.  Work within the herbs/spice combinations used in your filling recipe.

[droqen]

FOR FOUR CRUSTS
Ingredients
440g all purpose flour
½ tbsp salt (actually a little less: 0.44 of a tbsp)
151g lard cold and cubed
151g butter cold and cubed
2 tsp vinegar
1 egg lightly beaten (technically we want 2/3 of an egg, but 1 is close enough)
Ice Water

reducing the recipe "for four crusts" was not necessary or desirable for us, it made too little pastry dough: the full recipe would likely make four appropriately-sized crusts for our pie pans.

made for Chicken Pot Pie Filling ("IX"). turned out great!