Concord Grape Pie

I came across this recipe in the Canadian Heritage Cook Book back in 2000. It looked good enough to try and since then grape pie has been one of our family favorites. Here's the recipe:

Concord grapes
4	tb	Flour
1 1/4	c	Sugar
2	tb	Butter
		Pastry for 9" pie & extra for lattice top

Wash enough grapes to fill a 9" pie plate and make a rounded mound.

Squeeze the pulp from the grapes into a saucepan, reserving the skins. Bring pulp to a boil, strain out the seeds, and mix in the skins. Stir in 2 Tbsp of flour and 1 cup sugar. Line a pie plate with the pastry. Combine the 1/4 cup sugar and 2 Tbsp flour, sprinkle on to the crust. Add grape filling. Add butter as a dollop in the center of the filling. Cover pie with a lattice topping. Bake at 450 F. for 10 minutes, then reduce heat to 400 F. for 10 minutes, then bake for 30 minutes at 350 F.

From: The Canadian Heritage Cookbook, by Edna McCann

I ended up with maybe a cup and a half too much pie filling. So next time, I won't mound up the grapes quite so high.

The seeds are neatly left behind with this cone shaped sieve. It comes with a dowel. I found it at a yard sale and I've seen them in stores too. I suppose it works a lot like a food mill.

Here's the grape pulp ready for the skins to be mixed back in.

Grape pie filling.

For me, this took quite a bit longer than the recipe says to cook. It was in the oven for about an hour at the 350 stage. I think next time I'm going to add a little extra flour and I might try cooking the filling in a sauce pan before baking it in the oven. It was good just the way it was, though.