Cathy’s Strawberry Rhubarb Pie
Submitted by: CATHY SALTER
Cathy Salter is a TCI team member who now lives and cooks out west in the Sierra Foothills .
Over my lifetime as a piemaker, I’d never tackled a Strawberry Rhubarb pie until this year. A week after moving to Nevada City, CA after 32 years in Missouri, I had a request from our daughter Heidi’s partner for one. One of their neighbors had a bumper crop of rhubarb and gave her a fistful. Rising to the challenge, I went to my go-to “New York Times Cooking: source and found this incredibly simple recipe by food writer Florence Fabricant.
STRAWBERRY RHUBARB PIE
Serves 8
Ingredients:
3 ½ cups rhubarb stalks cut into ½ inch pieces. (Trim and discard the leaves which are poisonous; trim ends.)
2 cups strawberries (stemmed and sliced)
¾ cup to 1 cup sugar (depending on how tart/sweet you like your pie)
4 tablespoons of quick cooking (“minute”) tapioca
¼ teaspoon of salt
1 teaspoon orange zest
1 double-crust 9-inch pie dough recipe or box of two pre-rolled Pillsbury pie dough
Instructions:
1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
2. Assemble the pie filling: In a large bowl, combine the rhubarb and strawberries with the sugar, tapioca, salt, and orange zest. Let sit for 10 minutes.
3. Roll out the bottom pastry dough, line the bottom of a 9-inch pie dish with it, transfer the filling into the crust, and spread out evenly.
4. Top the pie: Roll out the second pastry dough and place it over the pie. Trim the edges an inch from the edge of the pie. Tuck the top edges over the bottom crust edges and use your fingers to crimp the two together. Cut slits or poke holes with a fork in the top for steam to escape.
5. Bake pie on the middle rack with a baking sheet on the lower rack to catch any juices that might spill over. Bake for 20 minutes at 400 degrees, then reduce to 350 degrees for an additional 40-50 minutes. Cool and serve warm or cold with a scoop of vanilla ice cream.
