Dan McAfee Is the Prince of Pie

Dan McAfee learned to make pies from his mother.

One of five children in the family, the Wyandotte man started making his own pies in high school, and continued cooking in his college years.

“I had to make them myself if I wanted pie that tasted like my mother’s,” he said.        

Now he’s director of the Detroit Archdiocese’s Office of Christian Worship, a married father of two teenagers and an accomplished cook and baker. And he still makes exceptional pies.

“I like to cook because I like to eat,” he said, with a grin.

His most recent effort, a deep-dish apple pie, fairly exploded with fresh orchard flavor. The homemade apple filling in the pie compares to canned filling as an aged, artisan Cheddar would to a slab of Velveeta.

The secret, he said, is making the pie from scratch with just the right apples.

“I like Ida Reds and Northern Spy,” Dan said. “These in this pie came from a farm market in Grand Rapids (where his wife, Sheila’s, parents live), and it’s a combination of both. This is the first apple pie I’ve made this year. I was just desperate for one.”

He said he can’t give out a recipe—because he doesn’t use one —but one tip is to use a couple of tablespoons of vodka in the pie dough.

The booze “evaporates in the oven and makes the pastry flakier,” he said.

Dan has many specialties, including Irish soda bread, brined roast turkey, chocolate pound cake, pork loin wrapped in bacon and a truly kickin’ vegetable chili.

Sheila raved about an acorn squash dish he makes.

Dan told how to make it: Halve the acorn squash and scoop out the seeds and strings. Bake the squash. While it bakes, sauté a mixture of chopped onions, apples, cashews and celery. Add that to a corn bread stuffing mix with some chicken stock and butter to make a moist filling. Mound that into the baked squash. Cover the top with shredded Swiss cheese, and bake it for a few more minutes until the cheese is melty and browned. Voila!

The recipe was one he concocted years ago when he was a vegetarian.

He also makes a homemade cranberry chutney using orange peel, marmalade, Granny Smith apples, cinnamon and cranberries to serve with pork or fowl.

One of his most interesting specialties is a Christmas plum pudding served with a sweet, brandied sauce. The recipe, which he found in a 1977 magazine and has saved ever since, originally came from the Hyde Park Hotel in London, England.

Dan starts making his plum pudding each year on the first Sunday of Advent.

“It has to scooch, as we say,” he said, laughing. “The flavors blend—they scooch—together. We flame it sometimes. It has lots of fruits and spices, and to me, it just tastes like Christmas.”

Sheila said it wouldn’t be Christmas in the McAfee household without the plum pudding. But oddly enough, their boys—Conor, 16, and Declan, 13—want nothing to do with it.

The boys have their own tastes, still developing, of course, and both are decidedly different in their preferences. Despite that, Dan and Sheila make sure they have family meals without TV or other distractions.

“We are pretty adamant about that,” Sheila said.

One dish that Dan makes fairly often and that both boys love is his marinated chicken breasts. It’s a go-to dish for busy days—easy and tasty.

Here’s how to make it: Cut boneless, skinless chicken breasts in half, and put them in a bowl with Italian dressing and a few squeezes of lemon juice. Make sure the chicken pieces are well coated on all sides, and let them marinate for an hour or more in the refrigerator. Throw them on the grill and in 15 minutes, they’re done, ready to serve with rice or potatoes and a green salad.

Dan is an adventurous cook, and he often tries new dishes that intrigue him.

His philosophy of cooking is simple: “Do it from scratch and use quality ingredients!”