Recently while "reading" (I use quotes because almost everything I read these days is a book on tape) Elmore Leonard's Tishomingo Blues there is a scene where the protagonist is talking to a woman at a Civil War reinactment camp. The woman is slicing green tomatoes for a "Naughty Child Pie". Coming from a long line of great Southern cooks I thought, "Wow...never heard of anything called Naughty Child Pie", and the only thing I knew you could do with green tomatoes was fry them or wait for them to ripen. My curiosity piqued, I started searching for Naughty Child Pie online. Many references were to the book, Tishomingo Blues, and to the fact that no one had a recipe. I finally stumbled upon an actual recipe and filed it under the "maybe one day I'll be brave enough to try this" category.
Well, this being the end of tomato season and what with having shared much of our bounty (unintentionally mind you) with the local deer population I realized I had a few measly little green tomatoes and if I wanted to give this pie a shot I'd better get crackin'. So Sunday was the day. I baked one and I must say it was quite yummy. I did not peel the tomatoes, which makes it a little tough to cut. I might try removing the peel if I attempted another one. This also calls for a boatload of sugar (1 1/2 cups) and I think you could get away with less. Not sure about the chemistry if you do that. Maybe one of you who actually studied chemistry can tell me if I should up the flour quotient or what. Here's the recipe. Give it a try and let me know what you think of this particular Naughty Child.
Naughty Child Pie
8 medium-size green tomatoes
1/2 Cup golden raisins
2 Tsp. grated lemon peel
2 TBSP. lemon juice
1 TBSP. cider vinegar
1 1/2 Cups white sugar
1/3 Cup toasted chopped pecans
1/4 Cup all-purpose flour
1/4 TBSP. salt
1 Tsp. ground cinnamon
1/2 Tsp. ground ginger
2 TBSP. butter chilled/cut into small pieces
powdered sugar for sprinkling
1 Pre-made pie shell
Preheat oven to 400°. On lightly floured board, roll out pie dough into a circle about 12 inches in diameter. Edges will be ragged,this is okay. Just leave like this as edges will get folded in later. Center dough in 9 inch pie plate. Cover & chill. Cut tomatoes into thin slices. Put into large mixing bowl & add raisins, lemon peel, juice & vinegar. Stir & set aside. Mix together sugar, pecans, flour, salt, cinnamon, & ginger. Blend well. Sprinkle 2 tablespoon over chilled pie crust. Add remaining sugar-pecan mixture to tomato slices. Toss to coat well. Scrape tomato filling into pie crust. Dot with pieces of chilled butter. Fold overhang of pastry into center over filling.
Bake 15 minutes. Turn heat down to 325° & bake for 45 minutes or until bubbly & crust is golden brown. Let pie cool on wire rack before cutting. Dust top with powdered sugar for decoration. (I didn't bother with the powdered sugar.)
Bon Appetite!
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4 comments:
you should be able to cut the sugar and not change anything else.
try taking the sugar dwon to one cup.
O.K. That sounds reasonable. I just didn't know if it would affect the "gel" of the mixture. I must confess that I used fewer green tomatoes than the recipe calls for (simply because that was all I had...the rest are in the bellies of the deer). It is an interesting one and one I'd make again. Sweet and tangy.
A lady of my acquaintance moved to this area from Mississippi to get married. After I read "Tishomingo Blues," I had occasion to ask her if she knew Tishomingo County. "Born there," she replied. And Naughty Child Pie? She'd never heard of it, alas. Recipe sounds interesting.
J, Small world, eh. Food definitely gets us Hendersons interested. This really did end up being a good pie. I'd recommend it. If you can find some green tomatoes in the store it's worth the effort.
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