Main crops of potatoes, available from September and apples fall in October which throws out a challenge to cooks to create different ways of eating a staple vegetable and fruit.
Pratie Apple Pie is a traditional Irish food for eating in autumn or the fall when the temperatures start to dip even lower. Served up with brown sugar or warmed local honey can make this apple and potato pie recipe something special to treasure eating at the table.
Pratie Apple Pie Recipe
Serves 4
Ingredients:
- 225g or 8oz floury potatoes
- 3 large ripe cooking apples
- 115g or 4oz plain white flour
- 8 tbsp caster sugar
- ½ tsp baking powder
- 1 small free range egg
Directions:
- Peel and cube the potatoes.
- Cook the potatoes in boiling water in a saucepan for 15 to 20 minutes.
- When cooked, drain the potatoes, pat dry and then mash well in a bowl.
- Add the flour, baking powder and half of the caster sugar to the bowl and mix thoroughly to form dough.
- Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius and lightly grease a baking tray.
- Place the dough on a lightly floured surface and divide it in half.
- Roll out one half to a 20 cm/8 inch round and place the round on the baking tray.
- Peel, core and thinly slice the apples.
- Arrange the apple slices immediately on top of the pastry and sprinkle caster sugar over the apples.
- Brush the edges of the pastry with beaten egg.
- Roll out the remaining pastry to a 25cm/10 in round
- Lay the pastry over the apples, seal the pastry edges together and brush with the remaining beaten egg.
- Cook in the oven for 30 minutes or until golden.
Pratie Apple Pie is best sliced and served hot with a sprinkle of brown sugar. Local set honey melted with a little butter or runny honey can be drizzled over a hot slice of Pratie Apple Pie.
Apple and Potato Recipes from Food Writers
Cooks of Pratie Apple Pie may like to bake similar recipes using apples and potatoes. Food writers who have sourced and published apple and potatoes recipes include:
- ‘Pralie Apple Pie with Honey’, introduced by Matthew Drennan in Classic Irish: A Selection of the Best Traditional Irish Food (Hermes House, 1996) as “This deliciously sweet apple pie is made with potato pastry which cooks to a thin crisp crust”.
- Eveleen Coyle in her Irish Potato Cookbook (Gill & Macmillan, 1997) publishes two recipes by Theodora Fitzgibbon including ‘Potato and Apple Cake’ from the Irish Times and ‘Potato Cake from Irish Traditional Food (Macmillan, 1983).
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