Concord Grape Pie

This recipe comes to us from Diana Sage (one of Carriage House Stable's boarders) after she brought us a surprise pie for staff lunch. We're not usually big on surprises here, because our surprises usually tend towards a surprise blight in a veggie crop or a surprise rain shower or some other inconvenient surprise that ruins our day. 

But, if Diana surprises you with a pie? Take it. Immediately. 

While we ate this sweet/tart bit of summer magic at the end of lunch, the table went silent. We couldn't be bothered with talking anymore while we focused all of our attention on filling our pie holes with this lovely dish.

Thank you, Diana. And congrats to all of you who will now be able to make this pie come August each year.

 

Ingredients

for filling
4 cups Concord grapes--only ripe grapes, unless you like your pie on the tart-er side, then include a small handful of green grapes.
1 cup sugar
2 TBSP tapioca
2 TBSP flour
¼ tsp salt
1 TBSP lemon juice
1½ TBSP butter (melted)

1 9 inch pie shell unbaked (use your favorite recipe. . .  or store bought, if you must)

for streusel topping
¾ cup flour
½ cup sugar
⅓ cup melted butter

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Wash, drain, and stem grapes. Remove skins (save skins) and simmer pulp for five minutes. Do not add any water to pulp. While hot, press pulp through a sieve or food mill to remove seeds. Discard seeds. Combine strained pulp with skins.

In a medium-sized bowl, combine sugar, flour, and tapioca. Then mix into grape pulp/skin mix. Blend in lemon juice and melted butter.

Mix streusel ingredients together stirring together until it resembles fine gravel.

Pour filling into the pie shell and cover with streusel topping. Cook in preheated oven for 40-60 minutes.

Diana says her pie has never been done in 40 minutes, but she starts checking it then and every 5 minutes after until it's done. You're looking for the streusel to turn a pale golden color and the filling to be bubbled up around the edges.