Name: Grape Pie
Cuisine: United States
Ingredients: 4 cups (about 1¾ pounds) slip-skin grapes such as muscadine, scuppernong, or Concord; ¼ pound (about ⅔ cup) chilled lard (or any combination of chilled lard, shortening, and butter); reserved pastry dough and filling; ½ tablespoon rice flour; milk or half-and-half; ¾ cup sugar; sugar; grated citrus zest and lemon juice (optional); ½ cup water, plus ice cubes; 1 tablespoon sugar; 1 pound (about 4 cups) unbleached (all-purpose) flour pinch of salt

Preparation info

Difficulty
Medium

Appears in

Hoppin John’s Lowcountry Cooking

By John Martin Taylor

Published 1992

About

This is my favorite pie, though many people have never heard of it. It is a Lowcountry classic. It can be made with any of the native American grapes. Some people use cornstarch or instant tapioca to thicken fruit pies—or, worse, wheat flour. Rice flour is tasteless and disappears, utterly transparently, into the fruit juices.

It was the pastry chef Kelly Bugden who taught me how to make perfect piecrust. Alas, I am never satisfied with my results unle