What’s the saying? You can learn a lot about someone by just listening. Well when my friend Angela speaks, I listen.

She’s one of those people in life who knows how to do some really amazing things. So when the talk of fried pies came up, Angela spoke. I listened. And we all get her grandmother’s recipe for fried apricot pies plus Angela’s take on her nanny’s pies. That is a pretty great reward for just listening. (By the way, I made both. While they are both amazing,  I have a weakness for Angela’s filling. It’s the touch of bourbon that got me. Try them both and you be the judge.)

I don’t remember my first indulgence of a fried pie.  It was one of those treats that just came with growing up in my family.  I do however remember helping make them with my mom and my grandmother, well maybe not always helping but being in the kitchen when they were made.  I spent many hours in my grandmother’s kitchen and just as many out on their farm in East Texas.

My grandmother or Nanny, Billie Jean Waddle (and yes, my grandfather’s name was Billy Bob Waddle) passed away almost two years ago and I still have so many questions for her.  But a few years ago, I asked her about the fried pies and where she learned to make them and why it was such a staple in our family.  She told me they were a “poor-man’s” food, or at least it was for her family– 8 of them  living in a two room house in Celeste, Texas.  They were a poor, hardworking, self-sufficient family but not underprivileged or unhappy.  Her family had gardens and fruit tree orchards.  The kids hand-picked cotton during harvest to afford books and school clothes, which usually meant for her buying a sack of flour and then her mother making a dress.

And speaking of flour, that along with butter, milk, eggs and sugar was much of what they ate.  Meats were a luxury.  Vegetables were seasonal and they ate what was available.  She was mostly raised on biscuits and gravy and until the day she died, that was still one of her favorite foods to eat.

Her mother, Nan, made sugar filled fried pies when fruits weren’t in season.  We couldn’t find a recipe but guessed she made the filling with cream and sugar.  They had apricot trees in the orchard so I guess that was a favorite which stuck with the family palate.  She told me her mother made fig, peach and chocolate fried pies.  She spoke of her mother’s tiny hands rolling out the dough, so much work for such small hands but the most important when making the pies.

Learning to make fried pies was almost a maternal rite of passage.  I remember myself, grandmother and mother all making them together at times.  One rolling out the dough, one adding filling and one frying.  Having a touch of the wayward child in me, I  changed the recipe a bit from the original my grandmother used.  Perhaps this is the reason I only received the green Participant Ribbon in the cut-throat State Fair of Texas pie contest.  Yes, I entered my fried pies and was a loser but next time I know to bring my pies in a wagon and not a cardboard box.  I’ve often thought of starting a business selling fried pies but my grandmother would say, “Oh honey, you would be so good at it but it’s just so much work going into the food business.  Just stick to your welding.”

Just a few weeks before she passed away, I made apricot fried pies.  She put a few in a box by her bed, just in case she needed a midnight snack.  And for the record, you can not eat just one.

Dried Apricots (size of package depends on how many pies you want)

1/4-1/2 cup of sugar (to your taste)

water

lemon juice (optional)

Cover apricots with water and bring to a boil.  Cook until tender.  Drain, reserve 1/2 cup of liquid.  Cool, mash apricots and combine with reserved liquid, sugar, lemon juice (optional).  Apricots refrigerate well.  Follow directions on Nanny’s Fried Pie Pastry recipe to fill.

2 cups flour

1/3 cup Crisco

1 tsp. salt

Ice water

(may double recipe if need more)

Add flour, salt and cut in shortening.  Add ice water to get the right consistency.  Roll out pastry real thin, and cut into circles (whatever size pies you want).  Fill circles with filling (2-3 tbsp.).  Brush water around edges of the circles and fold pastry over, making sure edges are even.  Using a fork dipped in flour, press edges firmly together.  Fry on both sides, in about 1-1/2 inch of oil until golden brown (375 degrees).  Transfer to paper towels.

2 cups dried apricots

1/2 cup of water or more to cover apricots

2 tbsp of bourbon (optional)

In a medium saucepan, bring  apricots and water to a boil.  Adjust heat to low, cover and simmer 20 mins, stirring occasionally, until liquid is absorbed and apricots are soft.  Mash apricots with a potato masher, add bourbon and cool.  (The apricot filling really does last in the fridge for months).

2 cups of flour

2 sticks of salted butter (I freeze mine), cut into small pieces

Ice water

Canola oil

In a bowl combine flour and cut in the butter.  I use a stand mixer for this.  Add ice water with a spatula until you get a pie crust consistency, not too wet and not too dry.  Divide dough in half and put half in refrigerator.   On a floured surface roll out dough to about and 1/8 inch or less.  Cut into 4-5″ circles using whatever you have, a can or a dish.  (They don’t have to be circles).  Place 2 tbsp of cooled apricot mixture on pastry circle, fold over and mash edges together.  You can use water to seal the edges if you want but I usually don’t.

Have your skillet on medium-high heat about 375 with about an inch or so of oil or even better, a deep fryer.  Place pies in the hot oil and cook 3-4 minutes each side until golden brown.  If you have a deep fryer just 4 minutes total.  Remove to a wire rack or a plate lined with brown paper or paper towels to cool.  You can sprinkle with powdered sugar if you want.  This recipe usually makes around 15-20 fried pies.