ginger pie

One of my favorite movies of all time is the 1971 Harold and Maude. It is about a young man, who is obsessed with death, and his interactions with an old woman, who is obsessed with life. It is the type of movie that makes one think about things that they have spent their whole lives not thinking about on all sorts of different levels.
Early on in the movie, Maude, a spunky firey woman, offers Harold ginger pie and oatstraw tea. "I'll bet you've never had oatstraw tea before, have you Harold?" Well, the other day, my girlfriend came over and we had dinner, which included beets (another food mentioned in the movie). After dinner we watched Harold and Maude with my parents and had ginger pie and oatstraw tea.

I was so very pleased with the ginger pie, as was everyone else who had it. I have actually made the ginger pie a subsequent time with a few alterations since and the general consensus was that the first pie was better.


Ginger Pie

1 unbaked pie crust
¼-1/3 cup minced young ginger
2.5 tsp rum extract (or 2.5 oz aged Rum)
1.5 cups sugar
8 Tbl unsalted butter, room temperature
¼ tsp salt
3 eggs
2.5 Tbl all purpose flour
¼ cup heavy cream
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp lemon zest

At least one hour before beginning, combine the ginger and rum in a small bowl or jar and set aside.

Cream the butter and sugar. Add eggs one at the time and mix after each addition. Add remaining ingredients, including the rum and ginger, and combine thoroughly.Pour the mixture into the unbaked pie crust and bake at 350F about 50 minutes, until the center has mostly set, but is still just a little wobbly – it will firm on standing.

It should have a slightly darkened, crusty top. If necessary, cover the pan with a tented piece of aluminum foil or an overturned stainless steel bowl to prevent overbrowning while the pie bakes. Serve with a dollop of loose heavy whip cream on top. Great, hot or cold.

Couple of alterations. The second time I made this, I grated with handheld cheese grater to speed up the process but ginger is a very fibrous root, and consequently made a very "hairy" pie. Also, the store was out of unsalted butter and I forgot to leave out the additional salt. I used real rum the second time around. Something about the second pie made it stronger. I don't know if it was additional salt or real rum or both, but it was less desirable.

The first pie had the 2.5 tsp of rum extract, which had a very eggnog smell to it which, I say, was fantastic.

I stole this recipe (with a couple of very small modifications) from another blog. I tried to contact the author without success. If you are interested at all to read his blog, you can find him at http://matthew-rowley.blogspot.com/2010/03/ginger-pie-rescued-recipe.html

A very hearty props to Mr Rowley (that's the guy I got the recipe from).