Categories: BakingTart

Savory Vegetable Pie

When my my parents were living in Allahabad, there was a lady my mom told me about who made really scrumptious pies. She was sweet enough to send two savory veg pies for me when I was around. The crust was buttery and rich and when I read the recipe she had kindly sent with the pies, I realized why. The dough contained a 1:1 ratio of fat to flour.

Generally, pie recipes start of with cold butter being cut into flour to resemble coarse breadcrumbs. Then water or egg (or vodka) is added to make the dough to come together. This recipe starts off the same, but instead of water the lady added low-fat cream (25% fat content) as the preferred choice of liquid. Its definitely more fattening, but it does taste good. So good 🙂

I tried the recipe as is for the first time and the next time did half cream, half water. It tasted equally good, and I felt tiny bit less guilty eating the pie.

I adapted the original recipe the lady had given for the filling and added some mushrooms to the filling as well. And while this is a vegetarian pie recipe, I added a few pieces of smoked chicken salami to the mix, which did add a really nice flavor to the filling. (I used Venky’s mexican chicken salami, if anybody is interested to know. This is not sponsored but I really like the taste of these salamis and loved the flavor it brought to the whole pie)

The filling recipe is enough for two pies, so please feel free to half the recipe. I just froze the leftover filling and few days later made fresh pie dough and used the frozen filling to make another pie. I did not defrost the filling, and thought the crust would turn soggy from the extra water, but it did not. Nonetheless I would suggest you saute the frozen filling in a pan and remove the excess water to be on the safer side.

Savory Vegetable Pie

Prep time: 1 hour

Cook time: 1 hour

Total time: 2 hours

Serves: one 9 inch pie

Ingredients

For the pie filling: ( makes enough for 2 9 inch pies)
2 tbsp garlic, finel chopped
1/2 large carrot, chopped into tiny squares
4-5 beans, chopped
1 potato, par boiled and cubed
1 large onion, finely chopped
1 green onion, chopped
1/2 cup cabbage, shredded
1 cup green peas
100 grams, mushrooms, sliced
2 tbsp white pepper
1 tsp chilli flakes
1 tsp oregano
salt, to taste
sprinkle of parmesan
pizza seasoning (optional)
few pieces Mexican chicken salami (optional)
shredded cheese (optional)
For the pie dough (makes enough for one pie)
300 grams flour
150 grams cold butter, grated and then frozen
150 grams low fat cream (or use half cream, half water, or use 150 grams cold water)

Instructions

Pie dough:

Measure the flour. Cut in the frozen grated butter, till the flour butter mixture resembles coarse bread crumbs. Let few tiny lumps remain if you want a flaky pie dough.
Add in the liquid (cream or water-cream or cold water) and combine the dough together till it just comes together. Do not knead any further. Divide in two and wrap cling wrap and refrigerate for 30 minutes, while you make the filling.

For the filling:

Heat a few tbsp of oil in a large non stick pan. Add the garlic and cook for a minute. Add in the onions and cook till translucent. Add in the beans, carrots, potatoes and mushrooms and cook till the water dries out. Last add the cabbage and salami saute on high flame. Add in seasonings and parmesan cheese. Remove from pan into a bowl and let cool. Work on the crust in the meantime.

Blind baking the crust:

Preheat oven to 180 C/ 350 F
Take one disc out and roll it out into a circle a little over an inch bigger than your tart pan. I generally roll out the disc between two sheets of parchment paper. It makes it easier to lift and transport it to the tart shell as well, plus one doesn't need to add extra flour for rolling out. Transfer and line rolled out pie dough on the tart pan. Remove extra dough. Place parchment paper and some pie weights on top to weigh down the dough while baking. Place tart pan in the oven and blind bake 20 minutes. Remove from oven, and remove pie weights and parchment paper

Assembling:

Add the cooled filling to par baked shell. Roll out second disc to size of the tart pan and cover the filling. Do an egg-wash on the top, or brush with milk or melted butter. Make four slits on the top and bake pie for another 30 minutes till the top crust is golden brown.

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