Rhubarb Meringue Pie

 

 

Rhubarb Meringue Pie.  Just the name is enough to get my taste buds salivating. I love my rhubarb, and I love rhubarb pie, but rhubarb meringue pie, well, it just pushes all of my taste buttons.

The delicious recipe for this tasty rhubarb meringue tart  pie I am sharing with you today comes from my big blue binder. It is a recipe I got from my first mother-in-law many, many years ago now.  In fact about 47 to be exact! (How did I get to be that old!) 

 

I remember the first time I experienced this pie.  It was nothing at all like my mother's rhubarb pie.  Mom's was really good, but it was just a normal two crust pie, filled with rhubarb and sugar.

Delicious warm with ice cream. You can find a traditional old fashioned rhubarb pie recipe here on my page.  I can warn you now, its very, very good!!

 

I wasn't sure if I would like Lois's pie. It was so far removed from the pies of my childhood.  It took a lot of courage for me to try it. I was a bit squeamish in those days.

I got really brave however, my desire not to hurt anyone's feelings being far greater than my squeamishness.  I stuck my fork in and it was pure love at first bite!  This was THE most delicious rhubarb pie I had ever eaten!

 

I have to bake it at least once every year, and I spend the rest of the year just thinking about it.  I learned a lot about cooking from Lois.

Lois was a farm wife and she was an excellent cook. She had raised five children and fed a hungry farmer husband for many years, as well as farm hands.  There was nothing coming out of her kitchen that wasn't delicious.

 

She had a huge kitchen garden next to the house and grew most of their vegetables.  They also had dairy cows, apple orchards, sheep and chickens.  Plus they grew vegetables each year for the local Graves manufacturing plant as well as almost all of the feed for their animals.  

A lot of it was good, old fashioned basic cooking, made with wholesome pure and natural ingredients. Economical and meant to use up what was produced on the farm, but she was also not afraid to stretch her boundaries.

 

She taught me not to be afraid to stretch my boundaries and to try new things, along with plenty of the basics. Her fried potatoes were legendary.  

She fried them in rendered salt pork and they were full of flavor and pork scratchins.  Delicious!  They literally melted in your mouth.

 

Back in the day a farm wife had to be a good cook.  The reliability of your work force depended on the meals you were able to provide the farm hands. If you were a good cook, you never had any trouble getting anyone to work on the farm.

I think I would have liked to be a farmer's wife in some ways, but not in others.  She was up at the crack of dawn and worked long hours into the night as she was also the book-keeper for the farms. (They had four.)  

 

It was really hard work from dawn to dusk and not for anyone who had a lazy streak of any kind. You really had to love what you were doing and be ready to get stuck into anything, be it rounding up cows that had gotten up at 3 in the morning,  helping the animals to birth, or mucking out the barn.

It is not for the weak of heart! I will just leave it there.

 

The cooking and gardening part I could easily have handled.  Especially the cooking part. As you know it is one of my great loves.

As is this pie.  I normally use my butter and lard pastry.  Here is the recipe for that.  The photo on the recipe is for my Canadian Butter Tarts, which you can find HERE.  They are excellent if I don't say so myself!

 

Butter and lard pastry

Yield: makes 2 nine inch crusts

Author: Marie Rayner

This is a beautiful pastry. Flaky just right. You can add a touch of sugar to it if you are making a fruit pie.

Ingredients

• 2 cups all purpose flour (280g)
• 3/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/3 cup butter (76g)
• 1/3 cup lard (or white vegetable shortening) (74g)
• 5 to 6 tablespoons of ice water

Instructions

1. Mix flour with salt, and cut in butter and lard, until you have pieces of fat in the flour about the size of peas. 
2. Add ice water, one TBS at a time, tossing it in with a fork until pastry comes together. 
3. Form in to a ball and cut in two pieces. Form each into a round flat disc. 
4. Wrap in cling film and refrigerate for 1 hour.

Notes:

If using for a sweet pie, add 1 or 2 teaspoons of sugar.)

Did you make this recipe?

Tag @marierayner5530 on instagram and hashtag it #marierayner5530

Created using The Recipes Generator

 

Normally I would make my own crust, but today I used a frozen crust.  I like the Tender Flake Lard Crusts.  They taste just like pie crust should.  I used another brand a few weeks back and they were horrible. They had a nasty chemical taste.

These ones did not. Normally I have my own pastry frozen in rounds, well wrapped, but on this occasion I didn't and I was in a rush.

 

This really is a simple pie to make.  You use an unbaked 9-inch crust.  You will need about 4 sticks of rhubarb for the filling, or 3 if the rhubarb is really large.

You need to cut the rhubarb into 3/4 inch pieces and cover it with boiling water.  Leave it to sit for 15 minutes, and then drain it really well. 

I think this helps to take some of the sharpness away from the rhubarb, but I am not really sure for certain. I only know it is what Lois did.

 

Once you have it drained you put it into the crust and then you pour a simple custard mixture over top.  This is pretty basic. Its just egg yolks, sugar, flour, melted butter and water.

This gets stirred til smooth and poured over top of the fruit. I use a large measuring cup so that I can get it poured evenly over everything.

 

Once you have the custard in, you dust the top with cinnamon.  I have always wondered by the cinnamon doesn't just get added to the custard, but this is the way its always been done, and why mess with perfection.

Fifteen minutes at a high temperature and half an hour at a lower temperature and your rhubarb custard base is done.  Ready to be topped with the meringue that you have made with the whites from the eggs.

 

I always like to add an extra white so that my meringue is nice and fluffy tall. Did you know that if you haven't got any cream of tartar you can use 1/2 a tsp of lemon juice or white vinegar in it's place?  It works a charm.

I like to beat the whites until they form soft peaks and then I slowly start pouring in the sugar in a steady stream until the whites double in volume and become all glossy and stiff.  Perfect to mound on top of that baked custard.

Brown in the oven and then try to resist digging into the pie until its completely cooled down.   If possible its nice to refrigerate it overnight, as it cuts even nicer, but you need a lot of willpower to do that!!

Did you know if you use a sharp knife and dip your knife into warm water, you get nice slices and the meringue doesn't stick to your knife?  Its true.  

Enjoy!

Rhubarb Meringue Pie

Yield: Makes one 9-inch pie

Author: Marie Rayner

Prep time: 10 MinCook time: 55 MinTotal time: 1 H & 4 M

This is the MOST delicious rhubarb pie going!

Ingredients

• short-crust pastry for a 9-inch deep dish pie
• 2 to 3 cups of rhubarb, cut into 3/4 inch lengths
• 2 large free range egg yolks
• 2 TBS flour
• 3 TBS water
• 1 cup (195g) granulated sugar (In the UK use castor sugar) 
• 4 TBS butter, melted (56g or 2 ounces)
• cinnamon to dust

For the meringue topping:

• 2 large free range egg whites
• 3 TBS granulated sugar
• 1/4 tsp cream of tartar

Instructions

1. Place your rhubarb into a bowl.  Cover with boiling water and leave to sit for 15 minutes.  Drain well.
2. Preheat the oven to 425*F/225*C/ gas mark 7.
3. Line your pie tin with the pastry, trimming and fluting the edge.
4. Whisk together the sugar and flour.  Whisk in the melted butter until smooth. Whisk in the beaten egg yolks and the water. The mixture will be fairly runny.
5. Place the drained rhubarb into the pie crust.  Pour the egg yolk mixture evenly over top.  Dust lightly with cinnamon.
6. Bake in the center of the oven at 425* for 15 minutes, then reduce the oven temperature to 325*F/165*C/ gas mark 3 and bake for an additional half an hour.  The rhubarb should be soft and the custard set.  the pastry should be golden brown.
7. Increase the oven temperature to 400*F/200*C/gas mark 6.
8. To make the meringue, whisk the egg whites with the cream of tartar until they form soft peaks. Continue to beat, slowly drizzling in the sugar until you have a mixture with stiff, glossy peaks.
9. Spoon the meringue on top of the baked rhubarb filling, covering it completely.
10. Pop the pie back into the oven and bake for a further 8 to 10 minutes until the meringue is golden brown. 
11. Remove and cool completely before serving.
12. Serve cut into wedges. Store any leftovers in the refrigerator.

Did you make this recipe?

Tag @marierayner5530 on instagram and hashtag it #marierayner5530

Created using The Recipes Generator

This content (written and photograph) is the sole property of The English Kitchen. Any reposting or misuse is not permitted. If you are reading this elsewhere, please know that it is stolen content and you may report it to me at mariealicejoan at aol dot com. 

Follow my blog with Bloglovin