Rhubarb Pie

Other than a reference to a character named "Rhubarb" in Strawberry Shortcake, I had never encountered the vegetable in either print or person until I was nearly 30. But it was pretty much love at first taste, and since then, whenever winter rolls around I keep an eye on the store shelves for the elusive (in Southern California climes, that is) veggie.

I play around with this recipe a lot, sometimes throwing in strawberries (as seen in the photos) or adjusting the amounts of sugar and flour depending on what I'm using. It's become a nice, very simple general recipe for these soft-cooking "sour" fruits that nevertheless still gets multiple requests from friends and family through the year.

• 1 double deep dish pie crust
• 4 heaping cups of chopped fresh rhubarb (see notes at bottom if using frozen rhubarb)
• 1 cup white sugar
• 6 tablespoons all-purpose flour
• (optional) 1 egg + 1 tsp water
  
• (optional) sugar
  

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1. Preheat oven to 450 degrees F (230 degrees C). Roll out the bottom pie crust and lay in the deep dish pie pan. Trim the edges.
2. Combine sugar and flour. Sprinkle 1/3 of it over pastry in pie plate (this will help the juices from soaking the bottom crust into soup). Heap rhubarb over this mixture. Sprinkle the remaining sugar and flour over the rhubarb. Cover with top crust and crimp the edges. (Optional: brush an egg wash of one whole egg and one teaspoon of water over the crust, and sprinkle with sugar.)
3. Place pie on lowest rack in oven. Bake for 15 minutes. Cover the edges of the crust with a heat shield and reduce oven temperature to 350 F, and continue baking for 40 to 45 minutes. Let it cool and set. (The center will be very soupy when hot, but as it cools, the flour will help it congeal. This pie may be served hot if you simply can't wait - which my family has done many times - but it's probably best when it's warm or just slightly above room temperature.)

Notes: The sugar level has been adjusted for a less-sweet pie. The original recipe called for 1_1/3 cups of sugar and exactly 4 cups of rhubarb. If you're using frozen rhubarb, try to defrost it first and then squeeze the extra water out of it, then add an extra tablespoon of flour to help thicken the sauce.