Blueberry bliss Innovative? Nope. Flashy? Nope. Worth baking tonight? You bet BY ANDY KING

I was going to do a review this week, getting started on the new crop of eating establishments that has sprung up in the area: that dessert place on Wharf Street, that Asian place on Commercial, the Shipyard Pub on Peaks, an Italian bistro in Scarborough . . . we’ll get to all of those places in the next couple of months, I promise.

But, see, I spent a couple of days in the forested hinterland of Rangeley last week. That I was in the woods wasn’t the reason I bagged the review; the blueberry pie I baked for dessert on Monday night was. It was the second straight night we took advantage of the crops of local native blueberries whose green cardboard pint containers quietly called to us from the shelf at the grocer. Sunday night saw vanilla ice cream with the berries sprinkled on top, and the next day we decided to heat up the chilly morning kitchen with a classic. Looking at the blue-stained teeth of my parents and wife and the remnants of our humble and delicious creation, I was so pleased with our efforts that I decided I just couldn’t live with myself if I withheld them from you.

THE CRUST

We want flaky, we want crispy, we want easy. No problem. It’s time you added an important recipe to your repertoire: The 3-2-1 Pie Dough. The recipe was originally for commercial kitchens, and the 3-2-1 referred to pounds. This recipe is scaled down to make one crust.

9 ounces flour (about 2 cups)

6 ounces very cold unsalted butter (one and a half sticks)

3 ounces very cold water

a literal pinch of salt

Cut the butter into little cubes, and work into the flour with your hands until there are no more butter chunks and the mixture resembles coarse sand.

Make a well in the middle of the flour-butter, and pour in the water. Work the dough with your hands until it just comes together. Dump it onto a lightly floured counter and work it until it is barely smooth. Divide into two balls, one just slightly smaller then the other. Wrap both in plastic wrap and refrigerate for a half hour.

Roll out the bigger ball; that’s the bottom crust. Lay it into the pie tin, and trim off the excess from the sides with a knife. Refrigerate for 15 minutes.

THE FILLING

The key to any pie’s filling, not counting using fresh, in-season fruit, is adding the correct adjuncts to the berries to achieve two simple goals: bring out the flavor of the fruit when cooked and keep that fruit from spilling all over the place when the pie is cut. There’s not a whole lot more annoying on this planet than trying to serve a piece of blueberry pie and having to plop the empty crust in the plate and go back with a spoon for the innards.

Despite having one old-school mother and two professionally trained bakers living all under the same roof, none of us could quite remember how the filling of a fresh-fruit pie went. So, we dug into the only cookbook that has ever lived in that cabin by the lake, The Joy of Cooking.

4 cups fresh blueberries, preferably the little Maine ones

1.5 tablespoons lemon juice

.5 teaspoon cinnamon

.67 cup sugar

2 tablespoons cornstarch or arrowroot starch

.25 cups water

2 tablespoons butter

Stir the cornstarch into the water until smooth, then add sugar. Let sit 15 minutes.

Stir cornstarch/sugar/water into blueberries with lemon juice and cinnamon. Pour filling into the crust, and dot with small pieces of butter.

Fill the crust with the fruit, and then roll out the smaller ball. That’s the top. Wet the rim of the bottom crust with water, and position the top crust on the pie. Trim the edges, and using a fork, press the edges together. Cut slits into the top crust, and paint the whole top with some milk.

Bake at 450 degrees for 10 minutes on the middle rack, and lower the oven to 350 degrees. Bake 45 minutes more. Let cool before slicing.

Can it: You can make pies with canned fruit, as well. But you’re going to have to look up the recipes yourself, you ninny, because I’m not going to throw my local blueberry picker under the bus.

Andy King can be reached at dinnerwithandy@yahoo.com