Apple pie, with a desi way..

Knead & roll like for roti, prepare brown sugar sauce like for baked veggies...

Apple pie

It is apple time in India. Drive through the highways of  Himachal Pradesh  or Jammu and Kashmir, and trees are weighed down with applies. In cities like New Delhi they have flooded the market.

Apples from Himachal

The crunchy ones are my favourite. And if they are sweet with that touch of sour, that much the better.
The apples in the alongside photo were given to me by my friend Gunita .Her daughter Sumedha's in-laws are big apple growers of Himachal, and these are totally organic without a sniff of pesticide near around the orchard!

I decided to make  an open apple chunks pie, based only on my experience  of making rotis/paranthas, white sauce, and simple baking !

Here goes the recipe that will hopefully get fine tuned over this apple season.

The ingredients are typical for the dish, but eggs have been left out deliberately. Butter has been used in very small quantity, and a generous use of whole wheat flour has resulted in refined maida getting reduced drastically. And so, it is a healthier pie.

Pastry ingredients

Ingredients:

For the pastry:

Flour-1 cup (Half wholewheat, half all-purpose or refined maida)

Sugar-1 teaspoon

Refined oil- Four tablespoons

Milk-Four tablespoons

A pinch of salt.

Vanilla- a few drops

Ingredients for filling

For the filling 

Diced apples -2, with peel

Wholewheat flour- 3 tablespoons, roasted

Brown sugar—2 tablespoons

White sugar-2 tablespoons

Cinnamon powder- 1 teaspoon

Butter- 2 tablespoons

Water-Half a cup

Pastry dough

Procedure

1.Mix the flour,sugar,and salt well together, and sprinkle the oil, and with fingers work on the flour till it begins to look like crumbs. Now sprinkle the milk and vanilla, and knead into a tight dough, reducing or adding extra milk as required. Refrigerate in a sealed container, while you are preparing the filling.

2.Dice the applies, and set aside.

 Heat a frying pan or karhai, add the butter. When it melts, add the roasted wheat flour, and keep stirring till  it turns golden. Add all the sugar, stir, adding water little by little.If the “ brown sweet sauce” is too thick, add extra water, keep stirring as it simmers for about five minutes.

Switch off, add the diced apples , cinnamon powder, and stir them together  till the apple pieces are coated with this sauce.Leave aside to cool.

How to prepare the pie crust 

3. Now roll out the pastry dough into a thick roti, though it will be difficult to make it round, and it may break. But worry not, it is easy to patch up wherever necessary. Use dry flour to dust,before you roll out.

Turn this “roti” onto a fluted pie dish, and cover it upto the edge. Trim off the excess. Take a sheet of aluminium foil, and press it into the dish, on top of the pastry, and place it in an oven preheated to 180 degrees. Bake for about 12 minutes.

4.When it has cooled, heap the applie in brown sweet sauce with the apples into the prepared pie crust, and slide it into the oven again. Now bake for about 25 minutes, or till you like the look of the pie. Switch off the oven, remove the pie , and leave it to cool.

Can be eaten hot or cold, plain or with ice cream/custard.

Apple pie