Wish I could capture the scent in my kitchen and permeating my house right now! Old fashioned gooseberry pie! I've caught the photo of it still bubbling above. This is thanks to my great-nephew Colin who requested gooseberries when he came, remembering gooseberry jam from his last visit. Actually, its thanks to my mother who always planted a gooseberry bush where ever we lived, and made many a gooseberry pie.
Knowing Colin was coming, I snapped up a few clamshells when I saw fresh ones at Molly Stone's. Since they needed to await his arrival I prepared them - first rinsing and pulling off their little dry brown tails.
Pulling off those little tails from each small gooseberry was more work than I remembered. Of course, my mother was pulling most of them off the last time I had gooseberry pie! I measured the amount for one pie in each container, and froze them.
So at last, I make the pie filling from the frozen berries. This is a very simple recipe.
Gooseberry Pie
2 crust pie crust
3 cups gooseberries
2 cups sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons quick cooking tapioca
1. Crush 1/2 cup of gooseberries in the bottom of a saucepan.
2. Add sugar, tapioca and salt.
3. Bring to a boil for 2 minutes, set aside for 15.
4. Add the remainder of the whole gooseberries into the sugar mixture, and stir gently.
5. Put
the bottom crust into a 9" pie pan.6. Pour the filling into the crust.
7. Top with the second crust, cut off extra pie dough and crimp crusts together, adding vents.
8. Bake in a preheated 400F oven for 35 minutes.
9. Let cool a few minutes for the filling to set up before serving.
And I'm going to submit this unusual berry post to
Weekend Herb Blogging, originated by Kalyn's Kitchen, and hosted this week by Kelly at Sounding My Barbaric Gulp. These are used to bring down fevers in parts of Europe, and in India these are prized for chutneys and ayurvedic medicine. It is also prized as a hair oil in India!
6 comments:
I've never eaten a gooseberry! Was it tart? What did the inside of the pie look like? Are these odd questions? haha.
Wow, sounds interesting. I never had gooseberries before. Do they come from geese? ;)
I've heard of gooseberries, but I haven't eaten them. Sounds interesting and tasty.
Steph: Yes, gooseberries are VERY tart, that's why so much sugar in the recipe. The inside looks like the uncovered pie in the photo, just more solid. Not odd!
Gay: They grow on bushes, not geese despite the name.
Kalyn: They are really tasty, tart, and something old fashioned, like rhubarb.
I know this is an old post, but I just used your recipe and it was great! Thanks.
4 bushes i have planted, including two rescue bushes in the way of a new road. 2 had berries this second year, but thank goodness for the local farmers' market where we bought two pints for 8 dollars (like the national debt!)
But when i went out to pick more berries off the two new bushes there were none; the birds like gooseberry pie also!
Thank you for this pie, it smells like heaven as it cools.
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