Acadian Rappie Pie

As tradition built it

Acadian Rappie Pie

Bake at 425°F for 30 minutes, then 375°F for a further 1½ to 2 hours; serves a crowd

Ingredients

• 20 lb, grated and pressed potatoes
• 40 cups water, used to stew 2 whole chickens (preferably stewing hens) for the stock meat stock, traditionally chicken
• the meat from the 2 stewed chickens, shredded cooked, shredded meat
• to taste, spooned over at the table molasses or brown sugar, to serve

Method

1. Grate the potatoes fine, then press hard, traditionally through cheesecloth, to remove nearly all their own liquid.
2. Discard the extracted starchy water and replace it with hot meat stock, traditionally chicken, worked back into the grated potato to a loose, wet consistency.
3. Layer this in a baking dish with cooked, shredded meat.
4. Bake until the top browns and the interior sets into its distinctive dense, gelatinous texture.
5. Serve traditionally with molasses or brown sugar spooned over.

Notes

On the strongest available evidence, this technique most likely postdates the 1755 Acadian expulsion rather than predating it, possibly learned from German or Swiss communities encountered in exile.

What a modern chef changes

Stock reduced before the liquid exchange

Cross-refs Rung 07, rappie pie's liquid exchange

Method

1. Press the grated potato through a proper press rather than by hand in cheesecloth, then reduce the reserved chicken stock separately in a wide pan to concentrate it before working it back into the potato, carrying more flavour into the same volume of liquid than the traditional method's straight stock exchange achieves.
2. Cook the shredded chicken sous vide first, so it stays genuinely moist through the pie's own long bake rather than drying out inside a dish built mainly to protect its starch, not its meat.
3. Finish the top under the Big Green Egg's direct heat for a hard, blistered crust in the last few minutes, the traditional oven bake alone never reaching quite that intensity.