Grape Pie

 

Makes two 9" or two 8" deep-dish pies of 8 servings each

Grape Pie
  • 2 quarts concord grape with stems (approximately 5 lbs)
  • ¾ teaspoon fresh lemon juice

    • For each of two pies:

    for the filling

  • ¼ cup flour
  • 1 cup sugar
  • pinch salt
  • 1 small tart apple (5 - 6oz)
  • 1 teaspoon cornstarch

    • for the crumb

  • ¾ cup flour
  • ¼ cup + 2 Tablespoons sugar
  • 2 dashes Ceylon cinnamon
  • 3 Tablespoons cold butter

  • 1 prepared pie crust

Special equipment

Food mill
Food processor
Pastry cutter

Method

Rinse grapes. Pop them out of their skins into a deep saucepan, but reserve the skins. Cook the naked grapes over medium heat until it comes to a boil and the grapes turn white. Meanwhile, give the skins a couple of spins in the food processor to chop. You don’t want to pureé them, just chop them. Remove the boiled grapes and press through the food mill to remove the seeds. Add the skins and lemon juice to the grape pureé. At this stage, you can freeze the filling for long-term storage. It’ll make a quart, enough for two pies. But freeze it in pint containers so that you need only defrost one pie’s worth at a time.

Preheat the oven to 375°. Make the crumb topping by cutting the butter into the flour and sugar with a pastry tool.

Peel and grate the apple. Squeeze away all the juice you can, and add to the grape pureé. Mix flour, cornstarch, sugar and salt, make a well in the center, and slowly stir in the grape pureé. Pour into your pie crust. Top with half of the crumbs, and place the pie on a baking sheet to catch the any spillover. Bake for 25 minutes, remove the pie from the oven and add the remaining crumbs. Spin the pie 180° so it cooks evenly before putting it back in the oven. Bake for another 25 minutes. Serve at room temperature.

Notes

The pectin-laden apple fiber and cornstarch help solidify the filling, else you have a very runny pie.

We used to only serve this in a short window in fall when the grapes were available, but freezing the filling makes it available year round, whenever you want to surprise guests.

This is a revamp of the original recipe after 6 years with one that makes more economical use of the (usually frozen) filling, is less loose so that more filling stays in each slice, and the crumb stays powdery and sweet instead of melting into the filling. “10/10. Best pie I've ever eaten,” said one taster.

This makes two 9" pies perfectly; you'll have some filling leftover on two 8" deep-dish pies... or a mess on the bottom of your oven.

Suggestions

We sheepishly confess that we did once line the pie shell with peanut butter for a PB&J pie, and we reluctantly admit that it was rather tasty.

It’s also very good ala mode, especially since there’s a little sour bite at the end from the skins.