How to Bake Rappie Pie

Serves: 12

Preparation time: 45 mins

Cooking time: 3 hours 30 mins

Ingredients needed to make Rappie Pie:

• ½ lb salt pork, cut into ¼’’ thick slices
• 3 lb fryer chicken, chopped into 8 pieces
• 3 lb potatoes, peeled and grated
• 2 carrots, peeled
• 3 onions, unpeeled and chopped
• 1 onion, peeled and chopped
• 2 celery stalks
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

Cooking instructions for Rappie Pie:

• Warm up your oven to 375 degrees F.
• Place the chicken pieces in a roasting pan and roast them in the oven for an hour or until they turn golden brown.
• Set aside in a bowl until it is cold enough to handle and tear the meat from the bone plus skin and reserve them in separate bowls.
• Empty a cup of water into the empty pan to de-glaze it and scrap its bottom to remove any brown bits.
• Pour this liquid into a large soup pot and drop the bones as well as skin to it.
• Fill the pot with 2 gallons of water and plop in the unpeeled onion, celery and carrots.
• Give it a nice stir and bring the mixture to boil before lowering the heat and letting it simmer for a couple of hours, covered.
• Skim off any fat from the surface and strain through a cone strainer to separate the veggies as well as bones from the broth.
• Return the strained broth to the pot and set the residues aside in a bowl.
• Drop in the peeled onions along with a dash of seasonings and simmer the broth for half an hour or until the onions soften.
• Keep the soup warm over slowest flame while you add the grated potato into a cheesecloth, 2 cups at a time, and squeeze out all of the liquid in it.
• Measure the amount of liquid extracted and make a note before throwing it away.
• Transfer the potato pulp into a large bowl and pour in same volume of the prepared broth as that of the extracted potato juice.
• Whisk in a dash of salt as well as pepper and set the mixture aside.
• Saute the pork in a skillet until the fat melts and the meat turns crackling crisp; remove from heat and keep it aside.
• Pour the melted fat into the roasting pan and spread a 1’’ thick layer of potato mixture over it.top it up with a layer of pulled chicken and repeat the layers until all of the potato as well as chicken re used up; the final layer should that be of the potato mixture.
• Spread the pork cracklings on top and bake the pie for about 3 hours or until the crust turns brown.
• Serve hot.

Image credit: Wikimedia Commons