Last summer while preparing for a week of vacation, I threw a lot of
blueberries (purchased during the week they were cheap) into the
freezer. Also, I picked a very large number of very small red currants
this summer, We put them in a bowl in the fridge, and we all nibbled
at them until they started to shrivel. They still tasted fine, but
they didn't look as attractive, and weren't as much fun to pop in your
mouth, and somehow they've been sitting in the fridge since mid July.
Yesterday I decided to use up the leftover fruit, so I made a pie.
I put a lot of blueberries in a bowl (about half domestic and half
wild, or "highbush" and "lowbush" if you prefer), and added some sugar,
quick-cook tapioca, and a little lemon juice. Then I started plucking
the currants off their stems and adding them to the pot. . . About two
tablespoons later, I decided the fruit was going to be cooked anyway,
and put the rest of the currants in the microwave along with a little
water. (If they hadn't already shriveled, I wouldn't have added the
water.) I cooked the currants for about 1.5 minutes on high, and
dumped the now-opaque fruit into a sieve, and squeezed the juice over
the blueberries.
What a fantastic pie! The currants added a slightly exotic tang,
without changing the fundamental nature of the blueberry pie. It
basically tasted like a particularly good, expensive blueberry pie.
Curiously, the flavor didn't hold up very well, and today it was only a
very good pie, not a fantastic pie. (Maybe I should have refrigerated
it?) But it was great.
Both blueberries and currants are easy to keep in good pie-making
condition, and I will definitely try this the next time I have surplus
red currants.