Son of Frankenstein. Rowland V. Lee. 1939.
For today’s dish from the Bistro Cooking, we have another apple tart. I mean sex worker. This one looks less like an omelette than the previous one… it’s a cream and egg thing (and apples, of course). It is, again, as with many of the recipes in this book, very simple. Perhaps too simple? I’m thinking this is going to taste very… one note? But let’s see.
The pie shell is a pâte brisée, which sounds tastier than the previous shell, which was basically just flour and water, and tasted like and had the structural integrity of cardboard.
So these are all the ingredients. Nothing fancy.
OK, the shell first. So it’s flour, salt and butter in a FUD professor.
Blitz it until it’s forming granules, just 10 secs.
And then add some ice water and pulse it until it gathers into a dough.
It’s super duper simple, so I hope it tastes OK. Then into the fridge for an hour.
Then roll it out into the proper size. I think I’m getting the hang of these pie shell things now: This dough didn’t fight me while I was rolling it out.
Then into the tin, 20 minutes in the fridge agains, and blind baking for a bit.
And then removing the baking beans and the foil and baking some more.
I had a taste of the shell: It’s edible! It’s kinda crunchy and flaky and has a not offputting flavour.
Then it’s the filling: Some egg yolks…
… and cream and sugar. The recipe said to use either creme fraiche or cream, and I went for cream, because… I like cream?
A lot of apple chopping happened here. The apples are cut into halves and then quarters, which gives pretty thick apple … wedges? I’d assumed that they were supposed to be thinner, but what do I know? NOTHING.
Then the egg yolk/cream mixture, and some sugar on top, and then into the oven for 45 minutes. (I added some foil on the outside in case the pie shell is leaking out.)
OK, the recipe said to bake until really brown, almost even blackened at the er edges… I guess this qualifies?
Hm…
Oh, this is really tasty! The pie crust is flaky and delicious; slightly salty and very buttery. And the filling is a lot more complex than I had thought it would be: The acidity of the apples vs. the sugary yolk/cream go so well together. I can’t stop eating this! Which may just be because I’m very hungry, but even so! Yum. So much better than the omelette-like apple pie from the other week.
So let’s watch the movie while I’m noshing.
Wow. Both Karloff and Lugosi? And Rathbone? This isn’t the B movie I expected.
Oops! I’ve eaten almost half of the pie.
Everybody loves this movie! I guess I can see why, just by reading the list of actors involved, but I don’t really get it. I mean… I love 30s movies, but 30s horror has never been something that I’ve been interested in. I’ve never found them particularly amusing… but I remember being really scared by the first Frankenstein when I was like nine and it was shown on TV for some reason.
The sets are quite nice, although the cinematographer seldom manages to place the camera somewhere that does the scenery justice.
I feel this should have been more fun than it was.
This blog post is part of the 1939
series.