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My son just graduated from college, from UBC in Vancouver. What better way to celebrate his homecoming than with yet another pie, our standard way for the past four years of welcoming him home to Switzerland from abroad. The rhubarb in the garden turned out to be exactly right, and when I asked if that would be acceptable for a pie I had an enthusiastic yes!
Pie in our house means the slightly salty American variety, a crust made from scratch, rolled out by hand.
Notes on ingredients: I keep my shortning in the refrigerator. Migros brand shortning is softer and easier to use, but Astra 10, which I buy at the Coop, is 10% butter, which I prefer. I take it out to warm up slightly, 15-20 minutes before I need it. My brown sugar is the soft variety from the US or UK, which you can find in several specialty food shops. Cooking butter or beurre cuisine is clarified butter, easy to find in supermarkets.
Rhubarb straight from the garden
- cut it just before you use it, to avoid woodiness developing
- make sure the stalks you cut are all about the same thickness and choose the reddest ones
- cut them off at the base of the plant and lop off that giant leaf at the top, leaving it on the ground if your clump is in a hidden corner of the garden, as the leaves are rich in nutrients
- try to select stalks from different parts of the rhubarb clump so it gets more light and air
- if you see any stalks about to flower or that are flowering, cut them off – the plant will give you rhubarb all summer if you keep it from putting its energy into flowers.
Preparing rhubarb in the kitchen
Wash the rhubarb but don’t scrape off the strings if you’ve just picked it.
Cut into pieces about 1/2 inch or 1cm long.
Sprinkle with:
1 cup (250 ml measuring cup) of sugar and 1 T brown sugar if you want it tart, or 1.5 cups sugar if you want it sweeter
1 tsp salt
1/4 cup (60 ml) flour
1 T butter, slivered.
Toss gently to mix.
Perfect American pie crust
Set aside the rhubarb, and prepare a two-crust pastry:
2 cups (500 ml) white flour
1 tsp salt
2/3 cup (160 ml) shortening
4-6 T cold water, more in drier areas such as the mountains.
Cut with a fork until some of the dough is the size of peas, the rest slightly larger lumps.
Sprinkle with 4-6 T of cold water, one spoonful at a time, tossing lightly and quickly from underneath with a fork to mix.
Note that the less you handle pie pastry the better.
Make a ball, which should be slightly sticky to the touch.
Use the heel of your hand to flatten it to a circle that is about 4 inches or 10cm in diameter.
Roll it out on a flour-covered surface, always rolling lightly from the middle of the circle, trying to maintain a round shape.
Dough should be about an inch or 2.5cm larger than your pie pan, which should have sloping sides.
Fill the crust with the rhubarb mix, to just higher than the top of the pan.
Roll out the second crust and cover the mix, turning under the edges.
Crimp by pushing the crust up against an index finger, moving around the edge of the pie.
Alternatively, cut strips and weave them for a lattice-top pie (see photos).
Sprinkle a few drops of milk on the top crust, then a couple pinches of sugar over the crust, to give it a crisp finish.
Bake at 210C for 10 minutes, lower heat to 185C and bake 25-30 minutes.
Crust should be golden, inside bubbling gently.
Cool for an hour before eating.