Leek and cheese mini pies

These pies are cute small snacks or party food but quite a lot of fun. They are quickly done since a ready-made pastry is used. I fully enjoyed this little break from the serious pie making this week. I still think these can be fit into the category pie and that is why they are now appearing here.

Ingredients for about 20 mini pies

3 Puff pastry sheets

2 Leeks

100g Grated Emmentaler

1 Onion

1 Garlic clove

1 tbsp Flour

1 tsp Thyme

1 Egg

Salt

Pepper

Sesame seeds

Slice the leeks and cut the onion and garlic into small pieces. Heat the butter in a pan and first fry the onions until they are translucent, then add the leeks and garlic. Fry at moderate heat for about 10 minutes. Grate the cheese.

Season the leek mix with thyme, salt and pepper. Take it off the heat and let cool down. Add one tablespoon flour and mix. It's a good binding agent for the fluid. Then add the cheese and mix everything thoroughly.

Beat the egg. Cut round pieces out of the pastry. If you don't have a round cookie cutter a drinking glass will also do. Put about two teaspoons of the leek mix on the pastry and brush the sides with the egg. Cover it with another pastry piece and press the sides firmly together with a fork. Brush the surface with the egg and sprinkle sesame seeds on the top.

When all pastries all ready place them on a greased baking tray and bake at 200C for about 25 minutes or until golden brown.

Then let them melt in your mouth!

Your VegHog

Brussels sprout cottage pie

A vegetarian cottage pie is a treat and should be made more often. I wasn't sure if I should call it a cottage pie, shepherd's pie or something else as the meat is missing, but I decided to go with cottage pie anyway. This is a little bit similar to Tuesday's Lentil pie, and that recipe actually made me think of this variation.  Also this one is easy to veganise by simply replacing the butter with plant based products, even the cider I used is suitable for vegans.

Ingredients

250g Brussels sprouts

250g Potatoes

2 Onions

1 cup of frozen soy beans

A handful of walnut pieces

4 Garlic cloves

1 cup Vegetable stock

1 cup Wyld Wood organic cider (Read my Wyld Wood review.)

Butter

Rosemary

Olive oil

Salt

White pepper

And how on earth could I leave the sprouts out of my ingredient photo? Oh well, I assure you that they were in the pie. By the way my ingredient photos hardly ever feature all the ingredients I used!

Method

First wash the potatoes and boil them in salt water until they are soft and ready to be mashed. If the potatoes are new potatoes I usually leave the skins on. Let them boil on the side and start the other preparations.

Wash and quarter the sprouts. Chop the onions and garlic. Prepare the vegetable stock. I normally use Kallo vegetable stock powder and mix it with water. Rosemary can already be added to the stock at this point.

Heat some olive oil in a pan and gently fry the onions for about 10 minutes. Then add the sprouts and garlic. Let it all fry for a while and then add the cider and let it reduce. Once cider is almost fully reduced add the vegetable stock to the pan and slowly boil under a lid until everything is almost cooked and the stock has reduced. Season with white pepper.

Prepare the potato mash by mixing the cooked potatoes with butter and salt until smooth. Add some liquid if needed. You could use vegetable stock, milk or just water.

Place the sprout mix into a large oven dish and cover it up with the potato mash. Make decorations with a fork and bake at 180C until the top becomes brownish. My decorations looked like the spines down a hedgehog's back.

Stay hungry!

Your VegHog

Rhubarb pie

A sweet pie will now be made just to celebrate the middle of the pie week. Although this pie is not so overly sweet it's interesting anyway. I like the bitterness of rhubarb in a sweet pie and I also use rhubarb way too seldom, so it's nice to bake with it for a change.

This is more a Finnish style rhubarb pie. Finnish summer pies typically have a quark filling with some fruit or berries.

Ingredients

For the base:

150g Butter

1 Egg

1dl Sugar

2dl Wheat flour

1dl Potato flour

1tsp Baking powder

For the filling:

2 Rhubarb stems

1 Egg

2 tbsp Quark

1dl Sugar

2-3tsp Vanilla sugar

Start by making the base. Foam the butter and sugar with a hand mixer, then add the egg. Mix the wheat and potato flours with the baking powder and add it to the butter, sugar and egg mix while stirring. Once you have a smooth dough spread it into a greased pie tin.

Preparations for the filling: Peel the rhubarb and cut it into small pieces. Mix the quark, sugar, eggs and rhubarb and spread them evenly on the base dough.

Bake at 200C for about 20-30 minutes until the pie receives some colour.

Serve with nice coffee and enjoy!

Your VegHog

Lentil pie

Hello again everybody! It's time to make more pies!

My English friend actually gave me his lentil pie recipe and I believe I'm safe to say that it's a true winner! It's a shepherd's pie style lentil pie and absolutely gorgeous. It's very wholesome and nutritious for vegetarians. Just remember to start soaking the beans the previous day and you're good to go (alternatively you can leave them out and it's still good).

You will need three pans, one for the potatoes, one for cooking the beans and one for the frying the filling veg (the beans will end up here when they're cooked). You'll also need at least one oven dish because this can make a lot of pie!

Ingredients

For the topping

Potatoes

Butter

Salt

For the filling

Cup of soaked mixed dried beans

Cup of red and green dried lentils

2-3 Large onions

2 Carrots

A handful of dried porcini mushrooms

4 Garlic cloves

A cup of cider

A cup of vegetable stock

Yeast extract

Soy sauce or Miso

Bay leaves

Olive oil

Salt

Pepper

Lentils and beans should be rinsed before boiling. Start by boiling the beans. They will need a while and it's important to make sure that they are fully cooked. Otherwise they might be harmful to your health. Please check the packing or Wiki for instructions if you're not sure, but these beans needed 15 minutes of vigorous boiling and about an hour of slow boiling. You can add the green lentils to the beans about 15 minutes before they're done. Cook the red lentils with the main mix later.

In the meanwhile chop the onions, carrots and garlic. Also prepare a mix of the vegetable stock and the dried mushrooms so they rehydrate. I usually break the mushrooms into small pieces for this dish.

Cook the onions for at least 15 minutes on a low heat with a little olive oil and salt. Add the carrots and garlic when the onions are starting to brown nicely.

Start boiling the potatoes for the topping until they are tender. I normally leave the peels on if I'm using new potatoes, it keeps the vitamins in. Once they are fully cooked mash them and mix with some salt and butter. Add some liquid like vegetable stock or just water to make the mash very smooth.

After frying the carrots and garlic with the onions for a few more minutes add the cider and let this reduce. Then add the stock, red lentils, cooked beans and green lentils, bay leaves and pepper. Add one or more of the yeast extract, miso or soy sauce; the aim is to add a savoury umami taste, so add these while tasting to get it right. I used a little of all three. Cook until the lentils are soft and tender, or even falling apart and the sauce is fairly thick.

Spoon the lentil and bean mix to about 2/3 depth in an oven dish. Cover with about 0,5-1cm of potato mash, if it doesn't spread well add a little more water or butter. Use a fork to decorate the top of the mash. Finally bake at 175C for about 30-40 minutes until the surface is lightly browned.

Serve hot with some nice fresh green veg.

This is a nice pie but the pie quest will continue tomorrow with other pie ideas!

Your VegHog

Cheese and onion pie

This is where the serious British Pie Week pie making starts. I thought I'd start with a classic: a simple cheese and onion pie. Somehow it is so very British as well! The only problem is that I have never made this kind of a closed pie before.

Therefore for the first try I decided to follow a recipe that I saw BBC's The Good Cook, Simon Hopkinson, make. This is actually his mother's recipe and you can find all instructions in the BBC page. I'm not going to repeat everything here.

I only changed it slightly: instead of lard I used margarine and instead of Lancashire cheese I used a mix of Cheddar and Red Leicester. I also added less water to the onions to evaporate. Otherwise I pretty much stuck to that recipe.

The pastry is quite rich as it consists of much fat but it suits well the cheesy and oniony filling. I realise that it's very important to get the pastry exactly right to be able to roll it properly and place it in a perfect condition into the pie tin. I still have some room for improvement as the pie could have looked better but the result was definitely tasty and extremely filling. The pie absolutely melted in my mouth!

All in all it was a very good experience and I'll definitely make this pie again some time.

See you tomorrow with a different pie!

Your VegHog

British Pie Week 2013 – Pieminister

Today the British Pie Week kicks off!

The VegHog got caught in the excitement and has decided to make a different pie every day during the British Pie Week 4.-10.03.2013. It's a challenge but hopefully manageable. Through this action I hope to learn a lot about pie making. British pies are tasty but unfortunately often meaty, so there's also a challenge to try and make innovative vegetarian pies. The VegHog pies won't be entirely British style as the VegHog twist is necessary like always.

In this first pie entry I'm going to write about a pie making company, Pieminister, to get into the mood of good pie making. Pieminister was founded in Bristol in 2003 and they are the makers of several award-winning pies. Luckily a few of their pies are vegetarian and some supermarkets stock their pies, but they also have their own restaurants and market stalls. I've only visited the restaurant in Oxford and it was a really good experience. They offer a broad range of Pieminister pies and even mash and peas as a side, and I believe other things as well. 

My absolute favourite is the Wild Shroom Pie, which consists of wild mushrooms, asparagus, white wine & cream. It is so shroomy and creamy! I sometimes like to have decadent weekend breakfasts with it or just eat it as lunch.  

Pieminister also pulled an evil stunt by making the most delicious and lovely seasonal pie and then taking it off the market: Christingle Pie with honey roast parsnip, cheddar cheese and chestnuts. They really made me addicted to it and now it's not available anymore! Well I certainly hope it makes a comeback this Christmas.

Find out more about Pieminister from their website. 

Shortly The VegHog starts posting its own pie recipes, so stay tuned. Have a good week celebrating all things pie!

Your VegHog

Omenahyve – Finnish apple crumble

Omenahyve (omena = apple, hyve = virtue, goodness) is a Finnish style apple crumble. It's very easy and effortless to make and it's a filling and sweet dessert.

Omenahyve is usually made in the late summer and in the autumn when new apple crops are being harvested. This dessert also fondly reminds me of carefree summers at my grandparent's place.

This recipe will make enough crumble for four people. I used Pink Lady apples but also some more bitter ones are suitable as the topping is quite sweet.

Ingredients

4 Apples

50g Butter

2dl Oat flakes

1dl Sugar

Vanilla ice-cream on the side

Method

Peel the apples and cut them to thin slices. Grease an oven dish and place the apples there overlapping.

Melt the butter and mix it with the oats and sugar. Spread the mix on the apples.

Bake at 200C for about 30 minutes until the apples are cooked soft and the oat crumble is crispy.

Serve it while the crumble is still hot with some vanilla ice-cream on the side. The contrast between hot and cold is amazing.

Try it, it would make a good dessert for a Sunday dinner!

Your VegHog