These soul warming vegetable pies are a beautiful way to entertain a casual weekend lunch with a couple of dear friends. The Indian style spices add a tasty, fragrant kick while the cheese sauce envelopes the vegetables, hugging them close.
It does look like a rather long list of ingredients, but please don’t be intimidated – you may have most of these ingredients in your cupboards. Otherwise, please adapt the recipe to what you have. If you are missing one or two of the spices, just use a little more of what you have. If you have kumara and red onion, replace the pumpkin and leek. The idea is to have a mix of vegetable styles to help hold the pies together and give them structure. At a pinch, a starchy root vegetable, a brasscia and something from the allium family is the minimum of what you need. A sprinkle of sesame seeds or poppy seeds on the top of the pies lid provides a nice touch, but isn’t necessary.
Serve with a big green salad on the side as well as a nice relish. Be sure to warn everyone before they tuck in, these pies are scorching hot in the middle; cheese sauce turns thermonuclear in these vegetable pies.
If they’re not all eaten straight away, these little babies freeze well for a future easy meal.
Ingredients
- 2 tbsp butter
- 2 cloves garlic, minced
- 1 x leek, sliced
- 1 x brown onion, sliced
- 200gm pumpkin, chopped in 2cm cubes
- 2 x carrot, chopped into 2cm rounds
- 2 tsp ground cumin
- 2 tsp curry powder
- 2 tsp garam masala
- 1 tsp ground cinnamon
- 1 tsp ground turmeric
- 3 tbsp flour
- 200ml milk
- 1 cup green lentils, simmered for 30 minutes, drained
- 1 cup broccoli florets, blanched
- 1 cup cauliflower florets, blanched
- 1 cup grated cheese, I used Hutchinsons Club Cheddar
- 1 handful parsley, chopped
- 5 sheets puff pastry
- 1 egg, gently beaten
Instructions
Melt the butter in a heavy based saucepan and gently saute the garlic, leek and onion until translucent. Add the pumpkin, carrot and spices. Cook over a medium heat until cooked through, approximately 20 minutes or so. Add the flour and milk, stirring until lump free and cook until the sauce has thickened. Add the lentils, broccoli and cauliflower and then the cheese. Turn off the heat and leave the cheese to melt, and the contents to cool. Stir through the parsley and preheat the oven to 180 degrees.
Line your pie tins with the pastry and then gently fill with the cheesy vegetable filling. You want the vegetables to form a little mound. Cut circular lids for each pie and gently brush the edge of the bottom with the egg wash. Top with the lids and gently seal the lids to the bottom. Trim the excess round the edge, brush with egg wash. Cook for 35 minutes, until golden brown.
Serve straight from the oven, with instructions to wait a minute or two before tucking in. Inevitably, someone will always ignore this instruction and meet the piping hot filling too soon.
