Recipe post: A pie made of grapes
I'm having one of those blogger's block weeks. It's probably due to the beginning-of-semester rush at work; my brain's been a bit fried lately. (In a good way—I had an absolute blast teaching a class today—but nonetheless in a way that leaves me disinclined to write long blog posts.) So in lieu of anything thinky, I'm going to post my favorite pie recipe. Not that pastry doesn't require thought, but you know what I mean. Anyhow:
Concord grape pie
This is kind of like a cross between traditional fruit pie and homemade grape jam. I only make it this time of year because you can't really substitute other grapes, and Concord grapes aren't in season for all that long. It's kind of labor-intensive, but the end result is so, so worth it if you like grapes.
Ingredients:
- Pastry for a one-crust, 9" pie
- 3 cups Concord grapes
- 1 cup sugar
- 2 tbsp. flour
- 2 tbsp. butter
Preheat the oven to 350F.
Pop the grapes out of their skins (this is easy to do with Concord grapes, because they have loose skins). Set the skins aside in a bowl, and put the grape insides in a saucepan on top of the stove. Bring the pan to a low simmer and let it cook until the seeds start to come loose.
Now strain the grape pulp through a sieve. Your goal here is to separate the pulp from the seeds so you can add it to your bowl of grape skins. Once you've reunited the component parts of the grapes (minus seeds), add the remaining ingredients to the bowl and stir until everything is mixed.
Pour your bowl of pie filling into the crust and bake for 40 minutes. Cool, and eat in small slices, because it's intensely grapey and richer than you'd think.
What’s funny is that earlier this week (Friday) some people were talking about grape pies – something I’d never heard of. It must be in the air!
It’s definitely a seasonal recipe, and it’s a surprisingly common one. I’d thought grape pie was an unusual thing until I googled it and realized there are actually a zillion recipes for it floating around the internet.