In my search for a soft pie crust recipe with which to make my empanadas I stumbled across this recipe from Cook’s Illustrated. Of course, in Christopher Kimball’s infinite wisdom I cannot see this recipe on their website even though I have had a subscription to their magazine since its inception. But no matter, you can find these things pretty easily on the internet and in the process I discovered a nice blog too.
So I made this pie dough. It is stranger than fiction but the crust it produced was amazing. It calls for a quarter cup of vodka and a quarter cup of water. The dough was nearly liquid. But it rolled out like a dream and the pastry it makes is soft and flaky and lustrous. Those are olive, mushroom and red pepper empanadas. I took them to French class. Even if we don’t eat everything, Jean’s husband will.
