On Thursday, September 1, 2016 at 12:26:52 PM UTC-10, koko wrote:
> On Thu, 1 Sep 2016 14:18:45 -0700 (PDT), dsi1 <dsi1yahoo.com>
> wrote:
>
> >On Wednesday, August 31, 2016 at 4:53:16 PM UTC-10, Cheri wrote:
> >> "dsi1" <dsi1yahoo.com> wrote in message
> >> ...
> >> On Wednesday, August 31, 2016 at 5:22:20 AM UTC-10, sf wrote:
> >> > I've been wanting chicken pot pie and had all the fixings, so I used
> >> > up a couple pieces of chicken and odds & ends of vegetables in the
> >> > vegetable drawer that weren't enough volume to serve two. The crust
> >> > is my usual food processor butter pastry, with black pepper and
> >> > parmesan cheese. The crumbles you see on top are seasoned and
> >> > rendered chicken skins. Yummy!
> >> >
> >> > Pictures in alt.binaries.food
> >> >
> >> >
> >> > --
> >> > I love cooking with wine.
> >> > Sometimes I even put it in the food.
> >>
> >> When I went downstairs this morning, I saw my daughter demurely cutting some
> >> butter into some flour using a fork and a knife. She had her earphones on
> >> and was in some kind of happy place. I told her to quit using such a pansy
> >> method of cutting butter and proceeded to jam my hand in there and started
> >> rubbing the butter in to break it up and incorporate it into the flour..
> >>
> >> Hopefully, she learned that mixing in the butter this way is a lot faster.
> >> When she bakes the biscuits, she'll probably find that it produces a better
> >> product. Then she will do that for the rest of her life. It's what I do with
> >> shortcrust too.
> >>
> >> https://www.amazon.com/clouddrive/sh...hare_link_copy
> >>
> >> =======
> >>
> >> I saw some tv cook use a frozen stick of butter for biscuits, he shredded it
> >> into the flour with a box grater. It does work well for pie crust too.
> >>
> >> Cheri
> >
> >I have heard of this. It seems like a good idea. I don't like the idea of using butter instead of shortening for biscuits or shortcrust so I probably won't be trying it - maybe I should try it with frozen shortening.
>
> I always use a cheese grater to grate the butter into the flour
> mixture. Easy peasy.
> Don't see why it wouldn't work with frozen shortening
>
> koko
>
> --
>
> Food is our common ground, a universal experience
> James Beard

It's just faster for me to dump the flour and shortening in a bowl or bag and start incorporating the fat into the flour using my fingers. Grating would take me more time. I always go with easy peasy and my pie crust is pretty much perfect.

I made a chicken pot pie this evening. It tastes just like a frozen chicken pot pie except it's not too salty. It's also not very exciting. A beef pot pie has a lot more interesting flavor possibilities. I mixed the shortcrust in a bag using my hand. A bag is good because in the end, I just squish the dough in a ball and stick the bag in the refrigerator to sit a while.

https://www.amazon.com/clouddrive/sh...hare_link_copy