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Farms to pick your own fruit and make a pie

Nothing sweeter then childhood memories around great grandma Katarina’s kitchen table eating fresh fruit and pie. At age 80 something, Katarina lived on her own in Klenovnik, a little place in Serbia. She had a small vegetable garden in front of her small house. And in her house she had a table so large there was barely any room for her small bed and wooden stove. At this table our whole big family used to sit and eat delicious pies she made.

There was a field not to far away from where she lived. In June, when it was cherry season, Katarina would take us kids to the field where the wild cherry tree grew. We loved being high up, in sunny summer days cooling of in the huge tree branches heavy with red fruit. Half of the cherries ended up in Katarina’s woven baskets and half in our belly.

When my family moved to South Africa, I would smell the warm bread and croissants being backed in a local Durban bakery and remembered Katarinas pies, her old hands, her loving blue eyes and all the laughing red faces around the big table in her very small kitchen.

This was a long time ago but still today I love to go cherry picking and sometimes I bake my favourite pie. Great grandma Katarina’s pie recipe does not have specific measurements. She never had a measuring cup or a scale. She didn’t have a fridge because she picked her food from her garden and she had pickled jars in winter. The food was so delicious there were never any left overs.

This is what I remember from watching her make it and with a little bit of help from my mother I made Katarina’s pies:

  1. To make the dough, add one and half teaspoon finely ground salt into a bowl with half a litre water. Keep adding flour until the mixture is solid enough so it does not stick to your fingers while mixing it. About 2kg of flour makes 3 pies.
  2. Divide the dough into 3 sections and kneed them into ball shapes. Sprinkle a thin layer of flour under and over the balls. Cover them with a cloth to rest for 10 min.
  3. Once the 10min are up, my great grandma used a glass bottle but any roller will do to roll out each ball into a rectangle about 30cm long. Again cover all 3 rectangles with a cloth and leave for 20min to rest, until you can easily pull the dough to stretch it without it breaking apart.
  4. Katarina used to put a large old cotton cloth over her whole table, but it can be any material you have at home that the dough will not stick to. Throw a little bit of flour over the whole cloth. Put the rectangle dough in the middle on the cloth. Wipe the dough with oil on top. With your hands slowly stretch the dough equally on all sides, towards the ends of the table. Its very important to make it very thin so its almost see through, it doesn’t matter if there are a few small torn holes. Once the dough is over the table edges, use a sharp knife to cut of the thick edges.
  5. Stand on one side of the table, with both hands take each end of BOTH cloth and dough and pull it over a third back onto itself towards the middle of the table, leave the dough to sit on top of itself, pull back the cloth onto the table again. Do the same from the opposite side of the table. After doing this, you will end up with 3 layers of dough, the width of your baking tray, in the middle of the table.
  6. Use one big spoon of oil, pour it to cover the whole surface of top layer of the dough. Put the fruit sporadically over the whole dough surface, not too much to make the pie soggy but enough to taste the fruit peaces (Katarina used either cherries or grated apples or grated pumpkin).
  7. For FRUIT mix in a bowl cinnamon powder, sugar, fresh lemon grind and juice, you can add raisins if you like them or ground walnuts. Sprinkle this mix over the fruit on the dough. Both Nr 6 & 7 might be a trial and error for first bake as I don’t have any specific measurements to give you.
  8. For CHEESE mix in a bowl about 4 rounds of feta cheese, add half cup full fat yoghurt and 4 whole eggs with a small sachet of baking powder and cover the dough evenly with this filling.
  9. Keep lifting the edges of the cloth to roll the dough into a cylindrical form, like a pancake. You can either put it onto the oiled tray as is or if the tray is small , make a spiral with the roll so it fits onto the tray.
  10. Warm up the oven at 250C. Bring the heat down to 180C and put the tray in so it bakes for about 40min. Keep an eye on the dough till its golden brown and the sugar is bubbling and caramelised on edges of the pie. Best served warm. ENJOY!

If you like this article and have more ideas where to pick your own fruit and vegetables or have awesome family recipes you would like to share, email me on kristina@loveandrockets.co.za

Western Cape

Cherries at Klondyke Farm, Ceres

Strawberries at Polkadraai Farm, Stelenbosch

Berries at Wildebraam Berry Estate, Swallendam

Figs at Hoogwater Farm, Tulbagh

Plums, pears, peaches and apples at Lentelus, Barrydale

Apricots and grapes at De Krans, Kalitzdorp

Gautang

Figs at Upatree Farm, De Wildt  R513

Strawberries at The Strawberry Farm , Skeerpoort

KZN

Litchies at The Litchi Orchard, Salt Rock

Credits:

Video: Cherry picking 1943 / British Pathe Films / You Tube

Article: Kristina Stojiljkovic

Recipe: Great grandma Katarina from Serbia

Links: Klondyke Farm / Polkadraai Farm / Wildebraam Farm / Hoogwater Farm / Lentelus / De Krans / Upatree Farm / Strawberry Farm / Litchi Orchard

Photography: Kristina Stojiljkovic

Magazine: photos published by Elle Decor