While in Pittsburgh I took part in a cooking and baking day. We all cooked food that we had grown up with which resulted in a delicious array of savoury and sweet dishes from Australia and the US. The final dish was the star – a blueberry pie made by Jon. Pie is the quintessential American dessert. If you go into any diner you’ll find iconic pies such as apple, pumpkin, cherry, lemon meringue and many more. Coming from Australia where sweet pies are just not as common, I’d never really understood the appeal. So much pastry just didn’t seem worth the calories – until I tasted this blueberry pie. Jon had watched his mother make it many times and although he professed never to have made it before, his pastry work was meticulous and the result was truly impressive.
Jon’s mother uses a store-bought pie crust or pastry and the following recipe by Christine Richmond. Preheat your oven to 205ºC (400ºF). Combine a little less than 1 cup of sugar with 4 – 5 tablespoons of flour. Stir in 4 cups of fresh blueberries and add ⅛ of a cup of water (this will allow the sugar to stick to the berries). Prepare the pastry crust in a 22cm (9″) glass pie dish and pour the blueberries into the crust. Dot with 2 tablespoons of butter and cover with the top crust, pinching the sides together and making slits to allow air to escape. Bake for 40 minutes or until the pie crust is golden brown. Sprinkle with caster sugar and serve with vanilla ice cream or cream (or both).
michelle picker cooks 