Pie baking

We had a dinner party on Saturday night for several Japanese visitors to M.D. Anderson. Mike made a meal including a roasted chicken and several other dishes from Mario Batali's Molto Italiano. I decided to get into the Thanksgiving mode and make a more traditionally American dessert, apple pie. This is the recipe I always use:

PAPER BAG APPLE PIE
1 10-inch unbaked pie crust
7 cups apples, peeled and sliced
1/2 cup flour
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 tsp. nutmeg
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
2 T. lemon juice

Topping:

1/2 cup flour
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter

Mix apples, flour, sugar, nutmeg, cinnamon and lemon juice. Pour into unbaked pie shell. Combine topping ingredients using a pastry blender or food processor. Sprinkle topping over apple mixture. Place pie in a large paper bag and close bag with staples or paper clips. Place bag on cookie sheet and bake in center of oven at 400º for 1 hour.

I even made the crust from scratch...don't remember the last time I did that! I used Martha Stewart's Pate Brisee recipe, which turned out very well. My mother has always insisted that lard makes the best pie crust, but I couldn't find any lard at Whole Foods! I used unsalted butter, just as the recipe calls for. I did come to realize that my food processor is not big enough to make a two crust batch, so I end up doing it by hand.



I love my apple/peeler/corer...I'm sure I would never make an apple pie without it!
It made fast work of those Granny Smiths!
Yes, you really do bake it in a paper bag. I'm not sure why, you just do...
The result was delicious...