Coconut Cream Pie

It is easy to make a pie here. All I have to do is to buy some pre-made pie crust, a package of filling mix, come back and make it, as per instruction on the box. That's exactly how I made my first lemon pie. However, I did not learn anything from doing it, especially when I live in Taiwan, and neither pre-made pie crust nor filling mix is available on the market there.

I decided to take a step further, and try to make my own pie crust and pie, from scratch! This time, I'm going to make coconut cream pie.

Found a recipe from foodnetwork. Recipe from a famous cook, very good review, but I had some doubt on the ingredients. It is called a cream pie, but the ingredients do not require cream, but use cornstarch instead? I thought I would have to buy lots and lots of cream cheese...

Anyway, I followed the recipe very well. Because of the doubt for using cornstarch, I even ran to grocery store to get whole milk, just to ensure that I have as little variation from the recipe as possible, though I strongly believed the 2% milk I had in the fridge should work just as well.

I measured everything, followed the directions, and when I heated the final mixture in the saucepan, and the whole thing started to thicken, I knew I made it. It felt just the same as when I was making the lemon pie with filling mix.

We saved it for dessert. After supper, I was ready to do the dishes and cleaned up the mess in the kitchen. Fred turned my body to face the pie. I did not get the hint, and tried to move away, but was then forced to see the pie right away. That was a good laugh. He was so ready to have a piece of pie. In fact, he had 2.

Some thoughts:
* The recipe calls for toasted coconut. I did toast the coconut at 350F for 15 minutes until some coconuts are golden brown. I tried both toasted coconut and un-toasted one, and thought I'd prefer un-toasted. Toasted coconuts tasted too dry.
* On the way back from grocery store, Fred asked me what topping I'd put on the pie. I answered without even thinking about it, meringue, as shown in the recipe. He then asked if it would be alright to use whipping cream. Sure, no problem with that, so we stopped to get a very small box of whipping cream (yeah, I even whipped it myself). It tastes so good with the whipping cream. I don't think the pie would taste as fine with meringue.
* I remember when I made the lemon pie with filling mix, I still had to use milk, sugar and eggs. Because the procedure and results of making the filling of this coconut cream pie is so similar to that of lemon pie, I would assume the ingredients for both pies should be pretty much similar as well. I then tried to remove milk, eggs and sugar from the ingredients, oops, does that mean I pay to buy the filling mix, and the mix actually contains only cornstarch and vanilla extract? I can certainly save that money!

Ingredients:
pie crust, 2 1/4 cups whole milk, 3/4 cup sugar, 3 eggs separated, 1/4 cup cornstarch, 1 3/4 cups toasted coconut, 1 tsp butter.

Directions:
* In a saucepan, whisk 2 cups of milk and 3/4 cup of sugar, and heat with medium heat and bring the liquid to simmer.
* Put the egg yolks in a large bowl. Add the milk mixture slowly to the bowl, and whisk at the same time.
* Dissolve cornstarch in 1/4 cup of milk. Then whisk the slurry into the milk mixture.
* Bring the mixture to boil, and then reduce the simmer. Stir constantly, until the mixture thickens. Add vanilla, coconut and butter, and mix well.
* Pour the filling into the pie crust and let the pie cool down completely.