[food/drink] Mint-chocolate pie.

1 9-inch pie crust
4 large egg yolks
2/3 cup sugar
3 1/2 tablespoons cornstarch
3 cups half and half
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 cups (12 ounces) semisweet mint chocolate chips

Bake crust separately and let cool. [I made a dough crust and did so poorly; I'm not sure whether, ideally, it would have had a good dough crust, or a graham-cracker crust.] Place yolks in medium bowl and set aside. Combine sugar and cornstarch in heavy large saucepan. [The mixture gains a LOT of volume when boiled. Don't use too small a saucepan or you will regret it.] Whisk in half and half. Bring mixture to boil over medium-high heat, whisking constantly, then boil 1 minute. Whisk half of mixture into yolks, pour yolk mixture into saucepan and whisk again to combine. Once again, bring to a boil and boil for 1 minute, whisking constantly. Remove from heat. Stir in butter and vanilla.

Place chocolate chips in medium bowl. Add hot custard and stir until chocolate chips melt and mixture is smooth. Spread chocolate custard into crust and cover with plastic wrap. Cool on rack 1 hour, then refrigerate until set. [2 hours in our ice-cold refrigerator wasn't enough; 12 hours was plenty.] Grate chocolate on top before serving.

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The original recipe suggested using 1 cup of peanut-butter chips and 1 cup of chocolate, spooning the peanut-butter custard on top of the chocolate. My experiment with this (I made two pies at once) suggests that 50% peanut butter is probably too much, and that one has to be careful in dividing the custard lest the two sections be wildly different consistencies. Although, I don't know, if they were even more disparate in thickness it could be interesting. That experimental pie broke two milestones for me: one, it was the first pie I had made with structural integrity (I cut half of it apart to take to work, and it came away with no struggle at all!) and it was the first pie I had made that I didn't really want to eat. I consider these both good things to have done at least once.

Considering how much I like mint chocolate, I feel like my having only moderate enthusiasm for the mint-chocolate pie may mean this isn't a totally great recipe, or else I screwed it up more than I realized. On the other hand, pie!