Roasted Strawberry Rhubarb Pie

Strawberry rhubarb. Roasted strawberry rhubarb pie. Strawberry rhubarb. That is not hard to say. That is not hard to say. Roasted strawberry. Roasted strawberry. Strawberry. Okay. Roasted strawberry. I don't understand what's wrong with me. I'm having a stroke. Okay. Strawberry rhubarb pie is truly one of my favorite pies and I am always pro fruit pie in the sense that I don't like a lot of fillers and gumminess and all that extra junk. I like it to be wonderful fruit, all the flavor. Now to do this, what we're going to start with is the fruit. Starting with strawberries. What I want to show you and what I think is essential here is do you see the difference in two strawberries? So I have some local, beautiful strawberries and I want to show you that yes, when you get local strawberries, they're a lot of times more irregular sized. Sometimes they're small. Sometimes they're larger. All locally grown. Beautiful farm. Just a few miles from me. My strawberries are over. So I got some that were close by. Now I had to supplement with a few store bought strawberries, which are still somewhat in season, like in the States, but still have to travel quite a ways. But look how much bigger they are. Not a problem. Both can taste good. I do always think the more local you get, the more ripe they are and in season, they didn't travel. They're going to have more flavor. But what I want to show, I'm going to haul them, which I haul all strawberries the same. I like to go in at an angle and put my knife right around that center. So it gets out kind of that stocky, woody, both leafy part and the stem part. Now you can make a tea out of the leaves. You can compost and you can do all sorts of things. When they're big like this, which a lot of times if you're going to buy store bought strawberries, this is what they're going to be. You definitely want to quarter them for this. And you can see they're a little bit whiter inside. Do you notice that? They don't quite get fully vine ripened when they're traveling like that. But when you get local ones, they're not near as white and they have so much more color. And I do think they have more flavor nuance. But do you notice what I'm doing with these? I'm just halving them because they're not near as big. So I don't need to quarter them necessarily. So for normal, what I would call normal size strawberries, sometimes I think we get used to grocery store things and we don't realize that's not always normal. To me, what I'm cutting in half right here, this is a normal strawberry that I grew up with. Ours were done usually kind of late spring, but it kind of depends on where you're at. If they're really small, you can leave them whole because what we're going to do is we're going to make a really interesting concoction here where we are slow roasting fruit, which is one of my favorite things. So I'm measuring as I go. This is the perfect amount of strawberries. We're going to just put them right onto a parchment lined baking sheet. So this sounds kind of odd, but what I'm doing here is we're just negating the whole idea for needing thickeners, for needing any type of like extra thing to make it kind of hold together like a pie. And we're cutting that out by roasting it, condensing it into a beautiful jam. Now, if you don't grow rhubarb, this is sometimes what you can get. A big, beautiful, my rhubarb this year, especially, but it gets so big. This is probably at least three foot, not counting the leaf, right? And look, now I will admit the leaf has been a little wind whipped because we're windy right now, but it is still beautiful. Usually I stop using my rhubarb, you know, kind of early summer, it kind of depends, but I went out and got some, washed it. It's beautiful. Now again, with rhubarb, you can now find it. I feel like a lot of times in stores, you can find frozen rhubarb that does work in this recipe. So I pulled in what I actually harvested from the garden. It was different types. And do you see how they're all kind of different? That's okay. All of it works in this case because it's going to roast. So while some of them are a little bit bigger and you can see this one's really big, if I cut it in half, you'll see that beautiful side profile of it. That's okay. We're going to have all different sizes. What I always do is just like to line them up. And if you're not used to rhubarb, by the way, this to me is a Midwest staple. It is a farm staple because it is a vegetable that we use as a fruit. Usually growing on almost every Midwest farm, there's a patch of it somewhere. And in the spring, it makes the best crisps, quick breads, cakes, muffins. And you'll notice there's different varieties of rhubarb. So sometimes you'll find some that are more green. Sometimes you'll find some that are more red and that's okay. That's the beauty of it too. Now what I have here are a full thing of rhubarb and all my strawberries. So this is 10 cups total of fruit. And that's what I like about this. It is a lot of fruit. And at first you're going to think that's way too much for a pie, which no, it isn't, but it's going to condense actually quite a bit. It's going to roast, but to do that, we need to do just a couple things to it. And so into this, we're going to add some sugar, not near as much as you think. Strawberries have a lot of inherent sugar. And the thing is, while rhubarb is a very tart kind of sour thing, and I know some of you out there are going to say that's a lot of sugar. It really isn't. It really isn't a lot, especially when you're working with rhubarb and that's because we're slow roasting it. I'm going to add a little bit of lemon juice. So anytime you can add some lemon juice, it kind of wakes everything up with the flavors. I think it brings out more flavor. It helps kind of make it more forward and prominent, especially when you're working with something like rhubarb, you want to make sure that flavor shines through. And now my hands are clean, best tool. I'm going to just toss this together. What this does is just help kind of beginning macerate some of the fruit. It helps that sugar just make sure it's going to be on all the fruit because really what we're making is a jam, a jam with a low amount of sugar compared to other jams, but one that's going to slow roast in the oven. So a lot of that excess water is going to leave and leave us with this perfect pie filling. I tell you what, I like pie. I love all pie. This pie makes me pretty excited. So what I'm doing is just slightly spreading it out. Perfect, ready to go. We're going to pop this in the oven, slowly let it go, and while it's doing that, we can get the crust ready too. You can make your pie crust ahead or while it's roasting like it is now, you can make a pie crust. Now a good pie crust, it takes a little bit of practice, right? But guess what? Once you get it, it's like riding a bike and you're going to have it forever and it's something that's always going to be delicious and impress people. So we're going to start with flour, all-purpose flour. This is a very simple pie crust. It is all butter. Sometimes in the past I have done lard and lard is delicious and you can use part lard if you want to, but butter will give it good flakiness and flavor if you do it correctly. That's what we're going to do. So we have the flour in here. We're going to do a little bit of sugar, not a lot. We don't need an overly sweet dough, but it is going to add a little browning too. And then of course some salt. So you put that in there and you just stir that together to start. And then we need butter. So butter is what is going to add that beautiful flavor and the flakiness because the pockets of butter that are inside of here, they actually steam when they're in the oven and that kind of grows these little pockets of flaky layers, which is what you want. So we're going to take the butter and we're going to cut it into small pieces. This is right from the fridge. You want chilled butter because the whole point with a good pie crust is work with it cold, bake it hot. Because you want it to stay really cold so it doesn't melt. That keeps the best texture for that butter to create flaky layers. So we have it cold here. Some people will go as far as chilling everything they're using. If you work quickly, I don't think it's too big a deal. It's the hottest day of the year. Maybe you could put this in the fridge every so often to keep it cold. So what I like to do first is toss that butter in that flour mixture just to make sure all those pieces are coated. I just think it's easier to work with that way. You can use a pastry cutter. You can use two knives. The best tools you're going to have though are your hands. And I think that touch and feel is so important when it comes to a pie crust. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to start picking up these little pieces of butter. You can see they're just about hardly even a half inch big. And I'm going to pick up a couple, one in each hand and my thumb and forefinger. And it's kind of like a frisage, but I just push it through. And you see how it creates kind of these irregular pieces of butter. And then I let those drop and I pick up two others with flour, push it through. And I keep doing that until I have the texture that's starting to resemble kind of a coarse crumb. Just takes a couple minutes and you can see by the end I go much faster. I just pick it up and I'm just kind of pushing it through and it becomes these irregular pieces, which is what you want. One way to check when you're done is maybe the size of a pea or smaller is what you want for the butter. Little pieces. But also I like to take a fist. It looks really dry and crumbly, kind of like a streusel topping. I make a fist and it holds shape. See how it holds, but it just instantly crumbles back. That's perfect. That means we are ready now to add the ice water. Yes, you can go the route of adding some vodka or vinegar. That's the idea that in the oven it dissipates quicker because it evaporates at a lower temperature. And so you'll be left with a flakier crust. It can kind of be true, but honestly if you just know the right amount of water to put in, that's all you need to know. So what I'm going to do is have my water right here. I have a couple ice cubes in it. I want to keep it cold again because my butter, I don't want it to get too warm. So I always start, I always have a range. I have four to six tablespoons on all my single pie crust and I start with four. So that's three and this is four. I usually always go up to at least five if not six. Sometimes in the winter it's drier so you'll go for sure to the six. In the summer sometimes it's more humidity. You only use five. Once in a while four, but usually often for me it's always five. So I toss in that water and at first it doesn't look too different, but we're hydrating that flour and everything with that water. I can see instantly it's not quite ready. You make a fist, it holds much better. You see how it doesn't crumble near as much, but we're not quite there. So we're going to add another tablespoon. This is the one where it takes a little touch and feel, but I really think after one time you're going to totally get it. So again I'm tossing, making sure I incorporate that water fully, and then what I'm doing again is making a fist. And look how with just that one tablespoon, so different, isn't it? I'm still going to add just a little bit more. And this is now, I never go over six tablespoons. I'm hardly even, I'm not even adding a full tablespoon there. Just enough so it holds a little bit more. And it still looks crumbly, but what we're going to do now is just kind of group it together. So just slightly in this bowl, I'm starting to notice I can make a nice dough ball. That's what I'm starting to do. It's not perfect yet and that's okay. You don't want to smash it together. You don't want to like kind of melt all the butter, push it too much. But I can see now I can make a nice dough mass. Do you see that? So what we do is we clean our hands off just a little bit. Never fully clean when we're making pie, but we're making a surface here and get a piece of plastic wrap and set that here. They make wonderful compostable plastic wrap now. And I'm going to put this right on here and we're going to finish it right on the wrap. So what is best to do now is always chill a dough. You can make dough way ahead. You can once it gets into a disc or into the pie dish, you could freeze it so it's ready to go. You can keep it in the fridge for over a day. What I'm doing is just pushing it together and it's creating, if you notice, a nice mass. I'm not overworking it. We don't want to overwork it. We want those pieces of butter because those are what are going to give us those flaky layers. So instead what I'm doing is just using the plastic wrap to allow me not to overwork it, but make a disc. And while it doesn't look like it's coming together, all of a sudden, if you look, you're left with this beautiful disc. So I'm about there. That's when I kind of tightly wrap it up all around, flip it over. And then I just use my hands here at the end to kind of push out any of the creases I see, anything that just needs to make it be more of a perfect disc. Because I think once you go to roll it out, if you start with a nice round disc to start with, and I'm going to get all those little cracks out because then when I go to roll it out, I think it rolls out nicer personally. What it's going to do now is just kind of relax and rest in the refrigerator. That's going to chill it, make sure that butter stays nice and cold before we roll it out. The dough has chilled. That's super important. You want to make sure it chills, but now we're going to put it on a floured surface. And I know, you know, you don't want to add a ton of flour to it, but you don't want it to stick either. So having a chilled dough is going to be our first line of defense. Flour is the next one. We're going to take it out from the wrap and you can see what a gorgeous disc this is. And do you see the pockets of butter still in it? That's super essential. So what I'm doing is putting a little bit of flour on top. Now my thing is when I'm rolling out dough with a good rolling pin, it's not tapered, it is just flat. I think that's essential. I make a roll, I turn. I make a roll, I turn. And I'm doing this the whole time because what that does to me is it keeps it moving so it doesn't stick, but it also helps it maintain a better round shape. It's not going to be perfect. And if you get, I'm going to get little cracks around the edges. That's normal. Don't worry about those. If you get a crack down the middle, then we'll have to maybe do a little bit of mending. What you can do, and you can always check it. You can always lift it, hopefully. It's chilled, so don't feel bad. Hopefully quickly lifting it. You want to work semi-quickly, but you can see, look how quickly I'm turning and rolling. As I get to the end, if you know the size of your rolling pin, that's usually how I eyeball it because I know what size I need. Otherwise, get a ruler. Don't just guess. You don't need to. You don't have to have everything perfect by knowledge before you get used to it. If you need a ruler the first few times, that's going to be great to use and it's going to let you know how big you want to go. Because the thing is, having the right size round to go into your pie dish to me is essential. So you can see, I was able to keep a fairly good circle. You have this little irregularity, but that's just about perfect. So pie dish. I'm not using a glass bottom. If you're not used to pie, I think a glass bottom is a great way to start because you can watch the bottom. We're going to blind bake this though. So we won't have a filling covering up the bottom. We can watch it anyway. I'm going to just turn this over about halfway. See how you can easily work with it. It's still cool to the touch. I'm going to set it right in my pie dish about halfway in, open it up, and look at that. Now never force pie dough into the corners. That's going to help it shrink. If you kind of stretch it, you don't want to do that. You want to let it just lift and let it fall down in. That means it won't shrink. And then I'll show you again how we don't shrink it. So what I like to do is leave most of my excess on so I get a nice sturdy beautiful edge crust. So if you notice what I'm doing, kind of just rolling it, setting it kind of over that rimmed edge, and I'm not pressing it. If I need to put it in the corner, I feel I will lift it and make sure I can get it down in without stretching it. Now if you want to even it up, you can. I'm checking all around. I don't think I really need to. I try to have it even enough that I don't because I like to just roll the whole thing under. Once it's all rolled under, I do like to kind of just go around, make sure it's nice and set. And then I just take my thumb and forefinger and my knuckles, how I do it. I like a very homey, cozy, just traditional crimp. Do you see how it was very quick to go in? This is just, you can do, you don't have to crimp it. It more does just keep those two, kind of that rolled edge together. But then it also makes it look kind of like a little bit finished and homey and perfect if you ask me. I love a simple crimp. So now what I'm going to do once this is done, I'm going to actually dock it just so that's ready to go because I'm going to set this in the freezer now just for about 10, 15 minutes. I just want to make sure it's well chilled before it goes into a hot oven. That's the key. It's cold. We're going to bake it hot. So the essential thing when you're doing a blind bake and you see I docked it, that's to release some extra steam so you don't get pockets in there. I'm going to crumple a piece of parchment. This helps it put into this nice chilled, chilled in the freezer just so it was quicker. So now I'm going to put in the pie weights and I want them all the way in. What I mean by that is I want them filled all the way to the top. The one big problem when a pie slumps it's either too warm or you did not fill it all the way. So if you're using dried beans or something, all the way to the top. And I even go in, if you notice I'm pressing them out, roll this over, pressing them out so they really are hitting the edges and they're going to keep that crust intact. Now we're going to bake it hot. I have it on a tray with parchment paper just in case any butter drips down. It's going into a different oven than my filling. All the components are pretty much ready. So if you look here, you can see this gorgeous crust. What I did was after 20 minutes at a high heat, I took out the pie weights because you want it to set before you take them out, otherwise it's going to slump. So you want this edge to be really set and also having a nice crimped edge on top here is what really helps it hold its shape too. Then I took them out and let it kind of fully bake and dry out. You can see it's trying to get golden brown on the bottom. You always want to watch the edges if you need to cover them. I will say I like certain old tools that like my grandma, my mom used something like a pie shield. You can buy, you can buy silicone ones too. I haven't used it yet, but sometimes now when it's going to go back in the oven, I use something like this to keep, if you don't want to get too dark. You can see we also pulled out our beautiful filling. Now it looks really different, right? It was piled high. What happened was during this whole time, I didn't ever stir it until the very end to see kind of how done it was. We now have this thick syrupy jam like delicious filling. So it's pretty much all fruit. That's what's wonderful. It has the condensed flavors. It's complex. It's really beautiful. You can always just only stir it enough if you feel like the edges are getting dark. I honestly feel like I never need to. I have made this pie out of my cookbook. If you remember, I have a cookbook out. This is my favorite pie on page 241 and I've made this pie probably more than anything else in there because I just keep making it because it's the time of year right now. So this I'm going to set here as we finish up just the streusel topping. So we have flour, brown sugar, a few oats, a little bit of salt and butter that's cold and cubed. We're going to mix it all together and we're just going to do pretty much the same thing with the pie crust where we just kind of push it out and make a streusel. With the streusel ready, we really just assemble everything. So I have my crust. It's still warm. That's okay. We're going to scrape everything of the filling right into it, which at first you're like, I don't know, that filling doesn't look like a lot. But then it all works down into this and just the perfect layer. You need it all. You know, even those little syrupy bits, they're just like that perfect little accompaniment. I could lick that out, but I won't. And I even dropped a little bit here. I'm not going to let that go to waste. It's going in. So I smooth this out. You can see, look at that. Look at that filling. It fills it up just perfectly. I just love this pie. I love strawberry rhubarb. You get the tartness, you get the sweetness. It's so seasonal and you might as well just enjoy it fully when it isn't season. I'm spraying it out to the edges.