Recipe: What Makes America Great Apple Pie

E A S T O N, Pa., Nov. 6 -- In our home, pork fat ruled.

My mother arrived in America from Hungarywith one suitcase, determination, and a love of food that included oldfamily recipes, many using lard from "The Pig" that not only saw us through cold winters, but through the Great Depression and the dark days of World War II.

The following recipe was one of the treasured possessions my mother broughtwith her almost 80 years ago. It, too, was an immigrant of sorts, and sohas adapted, evolved and embraced the best of its adopted country. Thisrecipe is now, like me, a proud, first-generation American.

Before You Start:

You should use a 9-inch old brown ceramic dish, or a 9-inch glass pie plate Lightly toast 1 cup of chopped hazelnuts Preheat oven to 425 degrees Set cookie sheet in oven to heat (you will place the pie on this later)

Ingredients for Crust:

1 3/4 cup flour 3/4 cup lard 1 tsp. salt 1 Tbsp. cold water

Directions for Crust:

1. Place lard in freezer for 20 minutes, so it is icy cold.

2. Place flour and salt in bowl

3. With pastry blender, cut in half the lard, until mixture is like fine meal.

4. Coarsely cut in remaining lard

5. Sprinkle 1 Tbsp. cold water over dough and mix with fork until all flour ismoist.

6. Press dough into a ball. Roll out at once.(If it falls apart, you'll be doing it right. Just patch the baby togetherin the pie pan)

Ingredients for filling:

6 medium granny smith apples cut into eighths 3/4 tsp. cinnamon 2 Tbs. butter 1 cup and 3 Tbsp. sugar 1 lemon 3 Tbsp. of the toasted hazelnuts

Ingredients:

1. Sprinkle 3 tbsp. hazelnuts and the 3 tbsp. sugar on bottom crust

2. Fill pie pan with apples, sprinkle cinnamon on top, then fork the insides of a lemon over all.

3. Sprinkle most of remaining sugar around edge of pie, rest on top. Dotwith butter, so butter and sugar will caramelize around edge of crust whenbaked.

Ingredients for Topping:

1 cup flour 1/2 cup sugar6 Tbsp. butter and the rest of the toasted hazelnuts