What better way to use two and a half pounds of olallieberries than in a pie? Ecology Action employee Mark first had the suggestion when discussing what we would do with the multiple varieties of berries harvested Wednesday morning. Since it was my day for lunch duty, I set out for the kitchen a bit earlier than usual to give myself ample time to whip up a couple olallieberry pies.
I worked with the following recipe from the internet which was essentially encrypted between manifold, large pictures of all the steps involved in baking the pies. http://foodiewife-kitchen.blogspot.com/2010/06/california-olallieberry-pie-barefoot.html
Since we were out of pastry flour, the crust was formed from triticale flour, which is a cross between wheat and rye:
1 cup whole wheat
½ cup white flour
2 tsp. sugar
½ tsp. salt
½ cup cold butter, sliced
4-5 Tbsp. cold milk
The crust was certainly the most difficult part of the process. Apparently the recipe warns against touching the dough with anything but a metal fork, and it must be set aside to ‘rest’ about a half-hour before rolling out.
The filling was much simpler. I had a total of 11 cups of berries which I wanted to divide between two pies. The recipe called for 8 cups of berries in each pie, so the finished product was smaller and more compact that what would be expected if the recipe was followed to a tee (for one pie):
8 cups of olallieberries
1 cup sugar
4 Tbs. cornstarch (or kudzu root or arrowroot)
Dash salt
Once the berries have been ‘dressed’, give them a stir to assure that ingredients are mixed in well. Then, set pie filling aside and proceed to rollout the dough for the pie crust.
It was suggested in the recipe to turn the dough over at each roll, to assure that it doesn’t crack and piece apart. I noticed that turning it over onto a floured surface at regular intervals does help keep the dough together.
Once pie crusts have been rolled out and placed in pie pans, you can either bake the crust beforehand to get it nice and crispy, or pour in the berry batter prior to early baking. I forgot to bake the crust beforehand, but the pie came out fine.
grow biointensive intern 