Rappie Pie: A Taste From My Childhood
So for those of you who do not know me, my dad was Acadian French from Saulnierville Station, Digby County. My happiest memories from my childhood are of the times I spent on the Doucette farm with my Grandmere and Grandpere and my uncles who were not much older than I was. I lived for my vacations there; of course, most of my time was spent in the barn playing in the loose hay, taming the kittens, feeding the calf, gathering eggs, "driving" Queenie, the work horse and learning how to milk cows. I would wander through the horse pasture to the old apple orchard and climb one particular twisted, ancient tree where I would straddle a branch and pretend it was my very own prancing steed! Idyllic indeed, until I got hungry and my growling tummy sent me to the farmhouse.
My Grandmere was a phenomenal cook: homemade butter, brown bread, white bread, pickles, pies...her pantry never disappointed! The ever present pink and white peppermints were placed on a shelf just high enough for me to reach! How I loved to watch her take the big double loaves of brown bread out of the wood stove oven hoping that she would let me have the "kissing" piece - where the two loaves joined - with butter and molasses! Everything was fresh from the garden, the hen house, the cows, the meat from the animals they raised, the wild blueberries and strawberries that we picked as the seasons provided. The coast was but a few miles away so the fish was freshly caught or, even better, was dried and salted. I cut my teeth on "dry fish" and love it to this day. The scallops and clams were so fresh they were still alive when my Grandpere would bring buckets full of them home to be shucked and made into something delicious. He could entertain me for hours by putting the "grosses coques" (big clams) on the table and putting salt out for them to lick. Kids today would not have a clue about that kind of simple entertainment, but obviously some people still know...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=irF5sBTVniI
One of the traditional delights that these clams, scallops, or chicken might end up in was a dish called Rapure (Rappie Pie), something that is unique to the Acadian Shore of Nova Scotia. In harsher times, the early Acadians had to be innovative with a basic diet of fish. meat, potatoes and onions.
Thus, Rappie Pie was created. It became the standard for Sunday dinners and for Christmas Eve after going to Midnight Mass. But it was no easy task to make Rappie Pie, perhaps that is what made it such a special treat. It involved a hell of a lot of work. Oh..and it wasn't much to look at, but the flavour...ohhhh..the flavour!
Now..I am copying this recipe as an example of the original way to make it.
Rappie Pie
There are two ways to eat rappie pie:
1. Directly from the oven.
2. Fried the next day in butter in a frying pan
In terms of condiments, you can use just about anything. Typical options include pickles, chow, butter , molasses or cranberry sauce
INGREDIENTS:
· 20 lb bag of potatoes
·2 whole chickens (about 5 pounds each)
· 3 onions, chopped
· 1/2 cup of salted green onions · Salt and pepper (to taste)
· 40 cups water
· Butter (to grease the pan)
· pork fat (optional)
You will also need a large bowl, a very large pot, and a 40x60cm baking pan.
DIRECTIONS
1. Place the raw chickens, along with the chopped and salted onions, into the 40 cups of water.
3. Cook for approximately two hours until the chicken is tender.
4. While the chicken is cooking, get started on the potatoes. Wash each potato, and remove the skins and eyes. Place the peeled potatoes into a bowl of cool water, so that they don’t lose their colour.
5. Once the chickens are cooked, let them cool and then debone them. Cut up the chicken meat into bite-sized pieces.
6. Grate the potatoes and remove the juice. This can be very time consuming,
Grate the potatoes by hand (make sure you have a good, steady grater; a commercial grater works best). Once you have grated all of the potatoes, take a cheese cloth or a pillow case, and place all of the potatoes into the case. Seal and squeeze out all of the juice. Make sure you get out all of the juice
you may have to squeeze everything a few times. The remaining mixture will resemble the photo below:
*Note: the grated potatoes will lose colour quickly. Make sure to keep your broth at a low boil, so that it can be added back into the mixture quickly.
7. Place the grated potato pulp (juice removed) into a large bowl.
8. Add 30 cups of the remaining chicken broth to the potato pulp. It works best to add about 4 cups of broth at a time. Make sure to continually stir the pulp and broth with a whisk. The more broth you add, the runnier your rappie pie will be. Add in the salt and pepper at this time as well.
9. Pour half of the mixture into your large pan, which should be greased with butter.
10. Add in the chicken pieces to the top of the potato mixture.
11. Pour the remaining potato mixture onto the top of the chicken in the pan.
12. For additional flavour, you can add bacon or cubed pieces of pork fat to the top of the rappie pie. This is a personal preference, and it something that my family always does.
13. Bake the pie in the oven for three hours at 400 degrees Fahrenheit.
A few other notes: Start off the rappie pie at 450°F for an hour, and then lower the heat to 400°F for the next 2 hours. I find that this makes for a better crust.
Ok..did you read that? Grate the potatoes by HAND? Let me tell about that process - it will remove much skin from your knuckles and fingers..all which will add extra texture to the Rappie Pie..or so I was told! I have only ever made it from scratch once, and it gave me new found respect for those tough Acadian farm wives who made this for their families. Nevertheless, Rappie Pie became a staple of my childhood memories, but my mother only ever made it once or twice a year.
So flash forward a few decades and some enterprising Acadian women ( who were probably sick and tired of squeezing potatoes and skinning their knuckles) developed a way to take the juice out the potatoes mechanically and freeze the resulting potato paste! You can now buy it this way in the local grocery stores. Game changer!
I started making Rappie Pie around 1990. Even with the convenient frozen potatoes, it was still quite a process. I was pleased with my results but my Rappie Pie never seemed to taste like my Grandmere's. Fortunately my husband liked it; many people are turned off because of how it looks - a kind of brownish / grey gooey concoction with some kind of meat in it - so they won't even try it. My Grandmere used to call it. "la glue" because it was so gooey. There are many connoisseurs of Rappie Pie: those who like it gooey (bottom picture) vs those who like it drier (top picture); those who like a crispy crust vs those who like less crust; those who eat it with butter and molasses vs anyone else and those who prefer clams to chicken. Just for the record, I like mine more on the gooey side with lots of chicken eaten with cranberry sauce (although I do also like the butter and molasses). Anyway, I was able to make a reasonable facsimile; good enough to satisfy my memories.
Which brings us to 2017, and I have become a pretty damn fine Rappie Pie maker. I learned how to salt my own green onions which is one key to the flavour, and, instead of cooking my chickens in water, I use the now readily available Campbell's Chicken Broth! Oh, I also save any water from cooking Hodge Podge - just freeze it if you have room..adds great flavour! I have mastered that perfect texture; gotten rave reviews from my various fans (Ok..Darren and Shelley!) and I make it a couple times a year. Which leads us to the moral of this story. Never get complacent!
So, I am cleaning out the freezer in preparation for our big (hopefully) move. but more on that to come, and I plan a Rappie Pie night; have Shelley, John, Whitney, Linda and Dave over and have a few laughs. Now I was going to do this back in June, but Linda and Dave were in England, so no worries, I put it off until July. I should have taken the hint that things might not go well when I realized that I had, indeed, recently sold the dining room set. So..no table or chairs...uh oh! No worries..Shelley noticed that small omission before I did (have I mentioned that I am a bit distracted these days?) and graciously offered the use of her table and chairs. So, ok..I would make it and transport it - perfect!
The day before I took all the broth,the chickens (4) and the Rappie Pie mix out to thaw. That evening when it was cooler, I cooked the chickens in the broth and broke all the meat up and put the broth to cool; oh, I was so ahead of the game! We had planned supper for around 5:30 so around 1:00 I started to make the Rappie Pie. I put the broth on to boil, got the potato mix in the bowl and, as always, started adding the hot broth. Now usually as the you add the broth the mixture takes on a smooth, gooey texture; not today! "What the heck?", I wondered as the slop in bowl got thinner and thinner and looked more like some disgusting gruel that would have been fed in a 19thC British orphanage - only not even poor Oliver Twist would have wanted more of this mess! I started to panic! The recipe called for 28 cups of broth which was usual, but the more I added, the worse the concoction looked. I was in a sweat...It was a very hot and humid day, so I was praying that the weather conditions might have something to do with this unfolding disaster! What to do?
"Ah, to Hell with it!", I muttered. "It will be what it will be!" I threw in the salted onions and slopped the disgusting mix into my pans. Instead of the chicken resting prettily on the first layer of potato, it all sank! I was almost in tears! How could this happen? Oh well, I finished it off and got the pans ( 2 9x13 and 2 smaller ones) in the oven hoping for a miracle.
Three hours later I braced myself for a total failure and opened the oven door. The miracle had occurred! In place of my slop was the bubbling. golden brown, glorious goo that I loved so much! I dipped a spoon in, afraid to taste it; Grandmere would have been proud! Perhaps there was some heavenly intervention involved in rescuing what I was sure would be a total flop, but Plan B - Chinese Take Out was averted. I received John's highest compliment, "My dear, it looks good enough to eat! So we did! Here's to good friends, good wine and Rappie Pie! Merci, Grandmere!
My Grandmere was a phenomenal cook: homemade butter, brown bread, white bread, pickles, pies...her pantry never disappointed! The ever present pink and white peppermints were placed on a shelf just high enough for me to reach! How I loved to watch her take the big double loaves of brown bread out of the wood stove oven hoping that she would let me have the "kissing" piece - where the two loaves joined - with butter and molasses! Everything was fresh from the garden, the hen house, the cows, the meat from the animals they raised, the wild blueberries and strawberries that we picked as the seasons provided. The coast was but a few miles away so the fish was freshly caught or, even better, was dried and salted. I cut my teeth on "dry fish" and love it to this day. The scallops and clams were so fresh they were still alive when my Grandpere would bring buckets full of them home to be shucked and made into something delicious. He could entertain me for hours by putting the "grosses coques" (big clams) on the table and putting salt out for them to lick. Kids today would not have a clue about that kind of simple entertainment, but obviously some people still know...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=irF5sBTVniI
One of the traditional delights that these clams, scallops, or chicken might end up in was a dish called Rapure (Rappie Pie), something that is unique to the Acadian Shore of Nova Scotia. In harsher times, the early Acadians had to be innovative with a basic diet of fish. meat, potatoes and onions.
Now..I am copying this recipe as an example of the original way to make it.
Rappie Pie
There are two ways to eat rappie pie:
1. Directly from the oven.
2. Fried the next day in butter in a frying pan
In terms of condiments, you can use just about anything. Typical options include pickles, chow, butter , molasses or cranberry sauce
INGREDIENTS:
· 20 lb bag of potatoes
·2 whole chickens (about 5 pounds each)
· 3 onions, chopped
· 1/2 cup of salted green onions · Salt and pepper (to taste)
· 40 cups water
· Butter (to grease the pan)
· pork fat (optional)
You will also need a large bowl, a very large pot, and a 40x60cm baking pan.
DIRECTIONS
1. Place the raw chickens, along with the chopped and salted onions, into the 40 cups of water.
3. Cook for approximately two hours until the chicken is tender.
4. While the chicken is cooking, get started on the potatoes. Wash each potato, and remove the skins and eyes. Place the peeled potatoes into a bowl of cool water, so that they don’t lose their colour.
5. Once the chickens are cooked, let them cool and then debone them. Cut up the chicken meat into bite-sized pieces.
6. Grate the potatoes and remove the juice. This can be very time consuming,
Grate the potatoes by hand (make sure you have a good, steady grater; a commercial grater works best). Once you have grated all of the potatoes, take a cheese cloth or a pillow case, and place all of the potatoes into the case. Seal and squeeze out all of the juice. Make sure you get out all of the juice
you may have to squeeze everything a few times. The remaining mixture will resemble the photo below:
*Note: the grated potatoes will lose colour quickly. Make sure to keep your broth at a low boil, so that it can be added back into the mixture quickly.
7. Place the grated potato pulp (juice removed) into a large bowl.
8. Add 30 cups of the remaining chicken broth to the potato pulp. It works best to add about 4 cups of broth at a time. Make sure to continually stir the pulp and broth with a whisk. The more broth you add, the runnier your rappie pie will be. Add in the salt and pepper at this time as well.
9. Pour half of the mixture into your large pan, which should be greased with butter.
10. Add in the chicken pieces to the top of the potato mixture.
11. Pour the remaining potato mixture onto the top of the chicken in the pan.
12. For additional flavour, you can add bacon or cubed pieces of pork fat to the top of the rappie pie. This is a personal preference, and it something that my family always does.
13. Bake the pie in the oven for three hours at 400 degrees Fahrenheit.
A few other notes: Start off the rappie pie at 450°F for an hour, and then lower the heat to 400°F for the next 2 hours. I find that this makes for a better crust.
Ok..did you read that? Grate the potatoes by HAND? Let me tell about that process - it will remove much skin from your knuckles and fingers..all which will add extra texture to the Rappie Pie..or so I was told! I have only ever made it from scratch once, and it gave me new found respect for those tough Acadian farm wives who made this for their families. Nevertheless, Rappie Pie became a staple of my childhood memories, but my mother only ever made it once or twice a year.
So flash forward a few decades and some enterprising Acadian women ( who were probably sick and tired of squeezing potatoes and skinning their knuckles) developed a way to take the juice out the potatoes mechanically and freeze the resulting potato paste! You can now buy it this way in the local grocery stores. Game changer!
I started making Rappie Pie around 1990. Even with the convenient frozen potatoes, it was still quite a process. I was pleased with my results but my Rappie Pie never seemed to taste like my Grandmere's. Fortunately my husband liked it; many people are turned off because of how it looks - a kind of brownish / grey gooey concoction with some kind of meat in it - so they won't even try it. My Grandmere used to call it. "la glue" because it was so gooey. There are many connoisseurs of Rappie Pie: those who like it gooey (bottom picture) vs those who like it drier (top picture); those who like a crispy crust vs those who like less crust; those who eat it with butter and molasses vs anyone else and those who prefer clams to chicken. Just for the record, I like mine more on the gooey side with lots of chicken eaten with cranberry sauce (although I do also like the butter and molasses). Anyway, I was able to make a reasonable facsimile; good enough to satisfy my memories.
Which brings us to 2017, and I have become a pretty damn fine Rappie Pie maker. I learned how to salt my own green onions which is one key to the flavour, and, instead of cooking my chickens in water, I use the now readily available Campbell's Chicken Broth! Oh, I also save any water from cooking Hodge Podge - just freeze it if you have room..adds great flavour! I have mastered that perfect texture; gotten rave reviews from my various fans (Ok..Darren and Shelley!) and I make it a couple times a year. Which leads us to the moral of this story. Never get complacent!
So, I am cleaning out the freezer in preparation for our big (hopefully) move. but more on that to come, and I plan a Rappie Pie night; have Shelley, John, Whitney, Linda and Dave over and have a few laughs. Now I was going to do this back in June, but Linda and Dave were in England, so no worries, I put it off until July. I should have taken the hint that things might not go well when I realized that I had, indeed, recently sold the dining room set. So..no table or chairs...uh oh! No worries..Shelley noticed that small omission before I did (have I mentioned that I am a bit distracted these days?) and graciously offered the use of her table and chairs. So, ok..I would make it and transport it - perfect!
The day before I took all the broth,the chickens (4) and the Rappie Pie mix out to thaw. That evening when it was cooler, I cooked the chickens in the broth and broke all the meat up and put the broth to cool; oh, I was so ahead of the game! We had planned supper for around 5:30 so around 1:00 I started to make the Rappie Pie. I put the broth on to boil, got the potato mix in the bowl and, as always, started adding the hot broth. Now usually as the you add the broth the mixture takes on a smooth, gooey texture; not today! "What the heck?", I wondered as the slop in bowl got thinner and thinner and looked more like some disgusting gruel that would have been fed in a 19thC British orphanage - only not even poor Oliver Twist would have wanted more of this mess! I started to panic! The recipe called for 28 cups of broth which was usual, but the more I added, the worse the concoction looked. I was in a sweat...It was a very hot and humid day, so I was praying that the weather conditions might have something to do with this unfolding disaster! What to do?
"Ah, to Hell with it!", I muttered. "It will be what it will be!" I threw in the salted onions and slopped the disgusting mix into my pans. Instead of the chicken resting prettily on the first layer of potato, it all sank! I was almost in tears! How could this happen? Oh well, I finished it off and got the pans ( 2 9x13 and 2 smaller ones) in the oven hoping for a miracle.
Three hours later I braced myself for a total failure and opened the oven door. The miracle had occurred! In place of my slop was the bubbling. golden brown, glorious goo that I loved so much! I dipped a spoon in, afraid to taste it; Grandmere would have been proud! Perhaps there was some heavenly intervention involved in rescuing what I was sure would be a total flop, but Plan B - Chinese Take Out was averted. I received John's highest compliment, "My dear, it looks good enough to eat! So we did! Here's to good friends, good wine and Rappie Pie! Merci, Grandmere!
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