What To Expect: The Modern Domestique Newsletter
also, pie! and a warm beet side dish recipe!
Welcome to the new and improved Modern Domestique newsletter! Things have been pretty quiet on the TMD front as of late, but that’s all about to change. I’ve dusted off the blog, have some new podcast episodes in the works, and have switched the newsletter over to Substack!
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Baking season is upon us, and I’ve been thinking a lot about pie. I suppose I should come right out and say it: I love pie. So much so that at our wedding, Mr. Domestique and I served pie instead of cake, and now we have photos of the pie that was served at the wedding hung in our home. It is a serious love (both between me and pie, and between me and Mr. Domestique).
I have one friend in particular that loves pie as much as I do, and I’m sure you’d be surprised by how many times throughout the year we end up talking about pie. This friend and I have a lot in common and she often motivates me to think outside of my little box, but she especially is inspirational when it comes to pies: we’ll be catching up on each other’s news and she’ll throw in the biggest flex by saying that she had a bad week, or was simply craving pie, so she whipped one up. She doesn’t mean to say it as a flex but it always hits me as one because, well, I should just come right out and say this too: I suck at making pie.
Here comes my flex: if I decide to try to make something - especially with a quality recipe which are typically the only recipes I use - it turns out as it should 99.9% of the time. The two definite exceptions to this rule are 1) pie and 2) hard boiled eggs that are easy to peel. The egg situation seems to be a hard and fast rule that cannot ever be broken even if some seriously dark magic were involved, but I feel like the pie situation might have some wiggle room for improvement.
My problem with pie is the crust. I can actually pull off a non-pastry crust - think graham cracker crust for key lime pie. The pastry crust is where my weakness lies. I just can’t seem to get it right. Sometimes it’s too dense. Other times it’s too crumbly. The more I baby it, the more I pay attention to it, the worse it becomes. It’s gotten so bad that I haven’t attempted to make a pastry crust in years.
It hasn’t always been like this. My mom’s no-fail shortening pie crust worked for me for a long time. But then I started avoiding Crisco, so I decided to try making an all-butter crust instead. A lot of well known chefs I follow (like Alice Waters or Samin Nosrat) swear by all-butter crusts, so I figured it would be easy, butter-cut-into-the-size-of-pea-zy1. After time and time again of failing, I eventually gave up.
But this week I was scrolling TikTok and the video below slid into my feed. Every recipe I have tried says to cut the butter into the flour until it is the size of a pea, and after watching this video I am wondering if that’s where I am going wrong. He also has a second video talking about the flour mixture/water ratio, saying that we need more water than we think which is another possibility for my lack of success, but I really feel like the butter situation is where I need to start (his recipe does use a mix of butter/shortening, and I am thinking of trying this brand out, but I am also curious if his technique will work with an all-butter crust). I haven’t tried making pie dough yet, but maybe I’ll work up the courage in the next few weeks.
MilkStreet’s crust recipe can be found here, although I believe it will be behind a paywall after Thanksgiving.
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A warm beet and celeriac side dish
adapted from Copenhagen Food by Trine Hahnemann2
I am planning on making this recipe this week. It’ll be up on the blog after I make it (aka after I have photos to post!), but I wanted to share it with my subscribers now in case you’d like to add it to your Thanksgiving table if you celebrate this holiday.
If you have never had celeriac before, let me assure you it is delicious. It’s also known as celery root here in the US, and pairs perfectly with the beets in this recipe. I usually find it at my local health food store, but have also seen it at places like Sprouts or Whole Foods. I’d imagine most well-stocked grocery stores have it in their produce section this time of year. If you can’t find it, I think parsnips would be a lovely substitute.
3-4 medium beets (about 1 lb), peeled and shredded or coarsely grated
1 small celeriac (about 1 lb), peeled and shredded or coarsely grated
1 small onion, coarsely grated
4 tbsp all purpose flour
1 tsp cumin seeds, crushed
2 medium eggs, lightly beaten
sea salt and black pepper to taste - probably about 1 tsp each
2 tbsp salted butter, melted
1 tbsp olive oil, plus about 1 tsp for oiling the baking dish
Preheat oven to 350°. In a large bowl, mix together the beets, celeriac, onion, flour, cumin, and butter. Mix the eggs in, then season well with salt and pepper. Spread the mixture into an oiled baking dish, drizzle the tbsp of oil over the top as evenly as you can, cover with foil or an oven-safe lid, and bake for about 40 minutes. Remove the foil or lid and bake for about another 15 minutes. Serve warm.
Emily Dilling’s delicious french onion soup recipe is a staple this time of year. Originally published in the first edition of her book, My Paris Market Cookbook, which you can find linked in my shop.
Things that have inspired me recently
This idea for a leftover thanksgiving casserole that you make as you are putting any leftovers away.
This person, reminding us via Gavin DeGraw to always be you.
This is a play on the term “easy peasy”. Most often, pastry crust recipes call for you to “cut the butter into the flour until the butter is about the size of a pea”. This joke is especially funny because I have to explain it using this fancy footnote feature? Maybe, yes?
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