Fondant potato, cheese and onion pies

I have been making fondant potatoes a few times lately. They are so tasty and comforting and also a bit naughty due to the rich butter ans vegetable stock mix where they cook. I think that they are quite perfect for autumnal dishes. I have made fondant potato pasties in the past and now I wanted to incorporate them into proper pies. I wanted to go with a good tried and tested combination of potato, onion and cheese with notes of thyme running through. These pies turned out really nice and I will surely make them again.

I had some seasonal vegetables on the side, steamed sweet sprouting cauliflower, which is very mild and pleasant new vegetable for me, and roasted acorn squash and purple carrots. I love the vegetables of this season!

Here is my recipe for 4 small pies:

Ingredients

3 onions

2 garlic cloves

Olive oil

6 potatoes

Fresh thyme sprigs

500 ml vegetable stock

25 g butter

1 garlic clove

400 g shortcrust pastry

150 g grated Cheddar

Sides: steamed sweet sprouting cauliflower, roasted purple carrots and acorn squash

Method

Chop the onions into half rings and cook them slowly and long until they are caramelised. Then add the finely chopped garlic to them.

Quarter the potatoes and place them into a frying pan. Put some thyme sprigs onto them and also add one quartered garlic clove and the butter. Then pour in the vegetable stock so that the potato tops aren't quite covered. Let simmer until the stock has evaporated and the potatoes are tender and browned. The potatoes can be turned over just before removing them from the pan.

Roll the shortcrust pastry out thinly and divide it into ramekins or small pie dishes. Cut the rest of the pastry into about 0.5 cm wide long strips.

Fill the pastry with grated cheese, onion mix and potatoes by layering them into the dishes in turns. Season with some additional fresh thyme.

Cover the pie with a pleated griddle of pastry.

Bake the pies at 180 C for about 30 minutes.

Enjoy!

Your VegHog

Fondant potatoes with romanesco bake and roasted carrots

Fondant potatoes are so lovely, but oh so difficult to get just right. Mine were just fine this time, although a bit more browning would've been nice. I will have to keep trying to get the perfect fondants one day.

With interest I read Felicity Cloake's recent article How to make the perfect fondant potatoes and everyone can decide based on that what combinations to use. I didn't make my fondant potatoes the same way as Felicity, maybe next time. I first fried the potatoes in butter, which had a small addition of oil in it and then cooked the potatoes in vegetable stock with thyme and garlic. I always think that the stock is the best part in this dish and I always save it either for just some drinking broth or some other recipe, it's so good! Am I the only one who drinks fondant potato broth? 

I served my fondants with roasted carrots and a romanesco bake. Finally I bought my first romanesco! It was quite good, a bit of a mix between cauliflower and broccoli, and I really like the weird look of it with its pointy florets. I steamed the florest first and then baked with cheese. I also added a little bit of pre-fried onion and garlic in there and salt and pepper.

This was quite a pleasing dish.

Your VegHog

Mini leek and new potato tarte tatin

I like savoury upside down pies a lot and this is one of my most recent creations. I think this is a very suitable dish for September as I used mini leeks and new potatoes cooked in fondant potato style.

I think it was easy to make, because there is no pastry making involved. This is how I made this tart.

Ingredients

320g puff pastry sheet

8-10 mini leeks

10-12 small new potatoes

A few sprigs of thyme

1tbsp vegetable stock powder

50g butter

1tsp salt

2tbsp sugar

Method

Pre-heat the oven to 180C.

Prepare about 2dl vegetable stock. Cut the new potatoes in half. Heat little butter in a saucepan at moderate heat. Place the potatoes into the saucepan and let them fry for a couple of minutes without moving them. Then pour the vegetable stock into the saucepan and add some thyme. Let the potatoes simmer under the lid until almost cooked. Just remember to make sure that the pan isn't too hot and the potatoes won't burn.

Heat butter in another pan and gently fry the leeks in there for a few minutes. Add the salt and sugar and heat it all for further couple of minutes. Brush a cake tin with some of this butter, salt and sugar mix from the leek pan.

Place the leeks into the bottom of the cake tin and also pour the rest of the butter on them. Then add the potatoes on the top of them and some more thyme. Finally put the puff pastry sheet into the tin and press it down to the edges.

Bake the tart at 180C for about 30 minutes. After baking carefully turn it upside down and enjoy it warm.

Happy savoury baking moments!

Your VegHog

Fondant potato, cheese and onion pasties

The VegHog has taken its own approach to pasties as well. This is quite a quick dish to make and brilliant to eat even cold the next day, maybe take it with you as breakfast or lunch. The Hog loves to take one with it for long walks in the nature.

Pasties are basically tasty with almost any vegetable filling but I'm going to make these with potato, cheese and onion filling only. My other favourites include just plain cheese and onion or mushroom and pepper filled pasties. I use ready puff pastry sheets form the shop but if you want, you can make the dough yourself.

The twist The VegHog puts in, is to use fondant potatoes. If you haven't made fondant potatoes before I really recommend you to try. They make a great side to many dishes and are very flavoursome in these pasties. Here you can find a good fondant potato recipe.

However I make the fondant potatoes slightly differently for this dish. This is how it goes Hog style: 

New potatoes are the best for this purpose! Dice the potatoes in small cubes, fry them in butter until slightly brown and bake them in the oven swimming in stock and thyme. I don't add any other seasoning as stock gives them the necessary edge.

Chop onions, grate cheese and mix these in a bowl. Later, add the fondant potatoes to this mix when they are cooled down a little.

You can make the pasties any shapes and sizes! Cut appropriate sized slices of the puff pastry: take into account that the easiest way is to use one slice of pastry that you fold over the filling. Place the filling on the pastry, brush the edges with egg and shape the pasty the way you want by folding the top over. Press the edges firmly together with a fork so that pasty will stay nice and closed during baking. You can make any kinds of imprints on the top with a knife or baking utensils, the Hog just made a simple grid on them. Brush also the outside with an egg and maybe throw some sesame seeds on the top.

Then bake in the oven at approximately 180 C until pastry is golden brown and puffy.

Done!