White Peach Ginger Pie

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Boil a pot of water. Once water is boiling add the peaches. Let them cook for 5 - 10 minutes. Then pour them into a colander and douse with ideally, an ice bath or less ideally, cold water from tap. The hot-cold shock makes the peach skins peel right off. Yes, you CAN keep white peach skins on for the pie but it tastes better to take them off. After peeling off the skin (or as much of it as you can), cut into slices. Don’t worry if they are mushy or a bit damaged from cooking. Put slices of peach in a medium bowl and add sugar, tapioca, vanilla extract and salt.
2. Crystallized ginger usually comes in chunks or cubes. Thinly slice each cube into ginger “flakes.” They don’t have to be too thin and they can be irregularly shaped since they kind of melt into the pie. This slicing up is a little tedious but trust me, it’s worth it. Add the sliced up crystallized ginger to the bowl with peaches.
3. Measure out the water and place in freezer to chill.
4. Combine flour, cinnamon, sugar and salt together. Mix. Add cubed butter and shortening. Cut the butter into dough using hands or a pastry cutter. When its incorporated there should be some visible chunks of butter and the texture should be like course cornmeal.
5. Check the water. It should be a little icy on edges. If its not, put the dough in the fridge while you wait for it to get colder. Once its icy, add the water to the dough and knead it so it starts to pull together. It’s almost magical because the dough goes from grainy and not-dough, to a bonafide pie dough.
6. If for some reason it seems dry after all the water is incorporated and is not coming together cohesively, you may add more water, by the teaspoon. It can be from the tap as long as the tap runs cold. If your tap runs hot, you could quickly chill a teaspoon of water with an ice cube. Generally 6 tablespoons works for me, but if you miscount or if your flour measurement is not precise (hey, sometimes we are pie making in a rush!) it can throw off this ratio. You will know if you need more water since the dough will NOT come together.
7. Split the dough into two balls, one is bottom crust and one is top crust. Roll out each on a clean, dry surface with ample flour.
8. Arrange bottom crust of dough on a standard 9′ round glass pie plate. Spoon peach-ginger mixture into pie and top with the starfruit slices. Cover with lattice or shaped cut-outs of dough. Cover the rim of the pie with foil. You may add an egg wash (Whisk 1 egg with a pinch of salt and brush the top crust) with turbinado sugar on top if you like. Bake for approximately 45 minutes (removing the foil on pie rim after about 30 min) or until the pie filling bubbles and the crust is slightly browned. Because of the cinnamon, this crust has a nice hue to it, but to get an even more golden top, broil the pie at the end of its baking cycle on high for about 1 - 3 minutes depending on the strength of your broiler.
9. Serve hot or cold with vanilla ice cream, whipped cream or solo.