Potato Apple Pie From 1783

apples and potatoes they're not two ingredients that i normally put together in a recipe but today's pie recipe uses both i can't wait to see how they turn out thanks for joining us today as we savor the flavors and the aromas of the 18th century [Music] i'm always looking for recipes that are very very common today yet we can connect with a place in a time in history an 18th century recipe well apple pies are one of those tricky recipes that can be difficult to find in period cookbooks i have done multiple a couple of different apple pies in the past and one that had a custard topping that was really good and the very very simple apple pie recipe that's in william ellis's book now this one is from cookery and pastry by mrs macgyver this one's from 1783 and it's really really interesting in that it's got these potatoes and apples together why potatoes and apples are the potatoes in there because they're trying to stretch it and make it less expensive with fewer apples or are they really there to change the texture to make it better boil some potatoes pair and cut some apples lay a row of apples in the dish a roll potatoes above them then some pieces of fresh butter that's got to be good above the potatoes cut apples potatoes butter alternately until the pie is filled up sweeten it to your taste take rather more apples than potatoes it is much better of having a little citron or orange peel in it put a little water in all apple pies cover it with puff paste let's get started with the ingredients obviously we need apples getting an apple variety that's exactly like they would have in the 18th century can be a little tricky i'm going to make it easy for you let's use a granny smith apple that's something you can find in the grocery store today and that's going to be close enough to an 18th century apple for us the recipe calls for boiled potatoes now we don't want to over boil these potatoes they're just kind of par boiled we don't want them to just totally disintegrate they're not going to stay in that layer like the recipe calls for if we over boil these so these are just partially boiled we've already peeled them we've got a little bit of sugar because it's supposed to be sweetened up we don't know exactly how much they're not giving us any quantity of ingredients so we get to sweeten to taste in the 18th century they probably wouldn't have used very much sugar and of course we've got some butter so the orange here just the orange peel that we need it's the only thing that's really kind of setting this off as a fancy dish just the apples and the potatoes that's a very low end kind of a pie here so the orange is sort of what this sets this off and it's even mentioned as an optional thing in the recipe so if we're going to make a fancy version we're going to put the orange peel in if we're not going to make the fancy version we just leave it out and of course we need some pie crust and it just mentions a top in this so it's so many times in the 18th century these pies mention maybe just putting a little paste around the edge of the pie pan and then putting a top on it this isn't a pie like we think of today where you know it's got two layers of crust and you can bring it out in this perfect pie shape they didn't eat these pies like that you couldn't because you didn't have a crust all underneath there so you just sort of scoop the stuff out like you would a casserole or something you scoop it out and serve it that way that's what we're going to do with this pie so we just have a little bit of a paste around the outside of the pie pan a little covering here it calls for puff paste that can be a little tricky to work with we just have a standard pie crust and we do have some pie crust episodes that you can go back and check out [Music] assembly of this pie is very easy we already have our apples sliced up and our potatoes sliced up very very similar sized we're going to start off with a layer of apple slices all nestled together here all in one direction we're going to fill up that bottom put on one layer of potatoes on top of that we're going to add sugar not a whole lot and a few dollops of butter in each row so the next row more apples more potatoes again more sugar and more butter as we finish this pie we do put one smaller layer of apples on the very top she calls for more apples and potatoes to finish this off we have our orange peel we're very carefully peeled off the very very outer layer of our orange peel we don't want any of that white pith that's on the inside of that that's bitter slice this up into little tiny pieces and sprinkle this all over the inside of the pie let's wet our fingers and seal on the very top layer of pie crust she called for a little bit of water to be added to the inside of this pie let's make sure to get that in there i did go ahead and cut a small vent to release that steam today we're using our mud oven and we've had a fire going in this all morning it's up to a nice 450 maybe even 500 degrees we're going to slide this pie in and let it bake for oh 30 to 40 minutes it really depends on how big the pie is and how hot that oven is very interesting looking pie uh definitely not the kind of typical apple pie look that we are used to um but it certainly smells like an apple pie all the pieces are holding up pretty well in this pie so i'm very very intrigued about how the flavor turns out so we're just gonna try out a piece and see what we get well that is a pretty good apple pie the the potato stands out more than i expected it to um there's not a lot of you know we don't have our typical apple pie spices in here but i think it holds up really well by the time you put together you know a little bit of the crust that you get and uh the the potato the apple just a hint of that orange in there and really that's mostly kind of a you know an aroma that you get so yeah i think it's a very very interesting apple pie you know i'm thinking i'm liking the way these things go together i like the way the apple and the potato goes together if you didn't know the potato was in there you might get tricked for a while no that's really good that is very good you definitely want to get that orange peel sliced into small bits all over it so that that flavor gets spread throughout the whole thing because it really really makes a difference and i guess the question is really what's going on with the potato is it there to stretch it out so you don't have to use as much apple or is it there for softening the texture and it's probably both i think it's really working out well giving it a little bit softer texture of course it's going to be a little bit softer than your apples but yet it's still holding together and it takes on some of the flavor the apple while it's in there so i think it's both it really does stretch the amount of apple you need you don't have to use this much apple and it adds to the texture creates just a little bit more softness but still has some you know it doesn't turn into mashed potatoes on you and speaking of combining very odd ingredients make sure to check out this parmesan ice cream episode

Channel: Townsends

Views: 155,077

Rating: 4.9889722 out of 5

Keywords: townsends, jas townsend and son, reenacting, history, 18th century, 19th century, jon townsend, 18th century cooking

Id: Nr77xiQV-Jw

Length: 9min 3sec (543 seconds)

Published: Mon Jun 07 2021