From Andrea: Remember to make the pie dough and sauce in advance. Keep them chilled, as I write in the post above. Hold off on preheating the oven until the shaped pie popper are chilling. And these freeze beautifully! Enjoy. If there's extra filling and dough, gather and press the dough scraps together, chill then re-roll to make more!
Servings: 6
Equipment
Baking stone or steel, rolling pin, 2-inch round cookie cutter
Ingredients
¼cup25 g finely chopped scallions
Juice of 1 lemon 2 teaspoons
Worcestershire sauce
1teaspoontamari or low-sodium soy sauce
½teaspoongrated garlic
½teaspoonSriracha hot sauceoptional
¼teaspoonfreshly ground black pepper
8tablespoons4 ounces, 113 g cream cheese, cubed
8ounces225 g fresh crab meat, carefully picked over to remove any shell and cartilage
2recipes Cream Cheese Pie Doughbelow, formed into 3- by 4-inch rectangular blocks
Egg wash1 egg beaten with 1 tablespoon cool water and ¼ teaspoon kosher salt
Spicy Chile Caramel Saucebelow, for serving
Instructions
Stir together the scallions, lemon juice, Worcestershire sauce, tamari, garlic, Sriracha (if using), and black pepper in a wide bowl. Let sit for 10 minutes to relax the sharpness of the scallion and garlic. Whisk in the cream cheese, one piece at a time, until the mixture is smooth-ish. Fold in the crab. Cover and refrigerate until ready to fill the poppers.
Place a Baking Steel, baking stone, or inverted baking sheet on the center rack and heat the oven to 375°F. Line two baking sheets with parchment.
Remove one block of dough from the refrigerator. Roll out the dough to an approximate 9- by 13-inch rectangle, cut out 24 (2-inch) rounds, and vent half of them. Brush the edge of one round with egg wash. Add a scant, packed 1 tablespoon filling to one round and form a popper with a second (vented) round. Transfer to a baking sheet and firmly fork-crimp the edges.
Continue to make 12 poppers. Brush the surface of each with egg wash. Refrigerate or freeze while repeating the process with the other block of pie dough to make a total of 24 poppers.
Bake the poppers for 20 to 25 minutes, until deeply golden brown. I prefer to bake the pies one baking sheet at a time to take advantage of the Baking steel in my oven, but if you want to bake them at the same time, switch them top to bottom and front to back halfway through the bake.
Serve warm. They are traditionally served (and are most delicious) with the Spicy Chile Caramel Sauce.
Notes
Recipe reprinted with permission from Cathy Barrow's When Pies Fly (Grand Central, 2019)