Maine’s coveted crop of wild blueberries are trickling into the markets now. On my way home from North Haven to Portland I stopped at my favorite farm store, Beth’s Farm Market on Western Road in Warren. She’s generally the first with many crops, her indefatigable green thumb giving a magical boost to most everything she grows. There, in the front of the store, were boxes of Beth’s wild blueberries. The accompanying sign said that they were early berries and needed to be picked over carefully to remove any green or unripe berries.
With my early crop of berries in hand and my recent stay on North Haven I turned to my file folder of pie recipes to make a recipe called North Haven Blueberry Pie. It was contained in an articled in the New York Times by Camden based cookbook author and food writer, Nancy Harmon Jenkins, and published in August of 2008.
In her recipe introduction she explained, “Some years ago, a Swedish woman named Lotta spent time on the Penobscot Bay island of North Haven. This recipe is adapted from the one she left behind, which has become a tradition among some island families.”
I actually asked around and those I questioned didn’t’ know anything about either the recipe for North Haven blueberry pie or Lotta. She worked for a family on the island and left behind this recipe.
I made the pie with the berries I brought back. It’s a tricky recipe, especially preparing the dough. It calls for putting the dough ingredients together, forming it into a disk and freezing for 30 minutes. You’re then directed to pat the dough into a 9-inch tart pan.
Blueberry tart with whipped cream
I misread the directions (always read a new recipe several times before starting) and patted the finished dough into the pan first (it instructs to form into a disk and then freezing the disk). Doing it this way presented some problems. The dough is sticky and somewhat difficult to spread evenly to form sides and cover the bottom.
But I froze it after patting it into the pan. When I took it out, the dough was as hard as a rock and patting the disk to fit into the tart pan would have been tricky indeed.
Mostly I don’t like recipes that call for patting a dough into a pan rather than rolling it out in the traditional way. It’s sticky, messy and doesn’t easily fit into a pie pan properly.
For the heck of it I did a little Google research, putting in “Lotta’s North Haven Blueberry Pie.” On top of the search list was a reference to a Saveur article (see recipe link) by Jenkins (written some years later in 2011), which extolled the virtues of Maine blueberries as well as citing this mysterious woman named Lotta and her island pie recipe. The method and ingredients given are somewhat different from the first recipe printed in the Times; instead it shows that my instinct was correct to pat the dough into the pan first and then chilling or freezing it. The magazine photographed the pie in a pretty ceramic pie plate even though the recipe calls for a tart pan with a removable bottom, a discrepancy that I find annoying when magazines chose to ignore a recipe’s directive for the sake of pretty food styling.
Still no matter the method used, this was an absolutely delicious pie that’s fairly easy to prepare. The dough is made with softened butter, flour, oatmeal, ground almonds and cinnamon and is quite tasty with good buttery richness. I’m not sure if it’s derivative of North Haven cooking, but the tart has great flavor and style and well worth making.
Take a look at the recipe in the Saveur article (see link above) for a different list of ingredients in the pie dough method. Either way, it’s a great pie. What’s given is my adaptation of the original recipe.
Ingredients
- Dough:
- 1/2 cup softened butter
- 1/3 cup sugar plus 2 to 3 tablespoons extra sugar
- 1 cup flour
- 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1/2 cup oatmeal
- 1/4 cup blanched almond slices, coarsely ground
- Dash of cinnamon
- Filling:
- 3 1/2 cups wild Maine blueberries, rinsed
- 2 tablespoons cornstarch
- Grated zest of 1 lemon
- 2 to 3 tablespoons lemon juice
- Confectioner’s sugar
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.
- Put the butter and 1/3 cup sugar into the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Blend until the butter is light and fluffy. Stir in the flour with a wooden spoon. Beat in the vanilla extract and mix in with a wooden spoon the oatmeal,dash cinnamon and the almonds, ground coarsely in the work bowl of a food processor.
- Lightly butter the bottom and sides of a 9-inch tart pan with removable bottom. With floured hands, pat the dough to fit the pan pressing so the sides are covered. If it’s difficult to do, refrigerate the dough in the pan for 5 minutes to make the fitting process easier.
- Cover the pie with plastic wrap and freeze for 30 minutes.
- Meanwhile rinse the berries in a large strainer and shake to remove excess water. Let drain while the pie dough is in the freezer.
- Put the berries into a large mixing bowl. In a small bowl mix the cornstarch and 2 tablespoons of sugar together. Add to blueberries and with your hands toss the berries to coat with the mixture. Grate the lemon zest over the berries and stir in the juice, using your hands to mix the berries gently. With a fork mash the berries slightly. Set aside.
- Put the frozen dough into the hot oven and bake until the crust gets lightly browned, about 20 minutes. Remove. If the sides have shrunk slightly, gently push the dough up the sides of the pan. Let rest for a few minutes then add the berry mixture, spreading it evenly. Sprinkle the extra tablespoons of sugar over the berries and bake the pie, fitted on a foiled lined baking sheet, in the hot oven for about 20 minutes or until the berries are somewhat bubbly and shiny.
- Put on a rack to cool completely and dust with confectioner’s sugar. Serve with sweetened whipped cream, vanilla ice cream or custard sauce.
