Settler's apple pie

Yield: 1 servings

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Every one knows how to make a common apple pie or pudding. But in case there may be a few among my emigrant friends, who have been unused even to this simple pprocess in cooking, I will say: Peel and core your apples; good acid cooking apples are better than sweet ones; drop them into a pan of clean water as you pare them; in the pie dish, place a tea-cup, turned bottom upwards; put in a large tablespoonful of sugar, and two or three cloves, or a bit of lemon peel, if you have these things at hand. Fill your dish with the cored apples and a very small quantity of water, a large tablespoonful will suffice. Add two or three more cloves, and more sugar; cover with your pastry, rolled thin, finely crimp the edge, and scallop with your finger and the edge of the knife. A few delicate leaves, cut and marked to resemble apple leaves, placed in the centre, give a pretty look to the dish. But this is a mere matter of taste. If you have any cause to think that the fruit is not quite soft, when the crust is baked, set the dish on the top of one of your sove griddles, and let it simmer a while. Some persons stew the apples first, season and put them into the dish, and when cool, cover and bake, but I think the apples never taste so well as when baked in the old way.

The reason for inserting a cup in the pie is this: the juice and sugar draws under the cup, and is thus kept from boiling out: paring the apples into the dish of water preserves them from turning brown or black, and the moisture they imbibe renders no other water necessary, or very little. The Canadians season their pies with nutmeg and allspice, making them sickly tasted; they stew the apples till they are an insipid pulp, and sweeten them till the fine acid is destroyed. A good, juicy, fine-flavoured apple-pie is a rare dish to meet with in hotels and among the Old Canadian and Yankee settlers. Origin: The Canadian Settler's Guide, written in 1855.

Shared by: Sharon Stevens.

Submitted By SHARON STEVENS On 03-28-95

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