A vegan pie that is super easy, pretty tasty and filling. Weeknight staple. I make it in a springform cake tin because that’s what I have, but a deep pie tin with a removable base would be good too. Remember to leave enough time for the crust dough to rest (30 mins), and blind-bake (15 mins).
Ingredients
- Crust – enough for one big base:
- ~2 c all-purpose flour
- ~1/3 c oil
- salt
- water
Rub in the oil and salt to the flour, until it resembles breadcrumbs. More oil makes a richer pastry, but really for every day, perhaps less is better. It’s just something to hold the pie together. Then add in the water, enough to make a stiff dough. It’s best to try and keep the dough bread-crumby until you know it will come together with an adequate texture (test it by squeezing a handful into a clump). Knead the dough just a little until it comes together coherently and you can form a ball and put it to rest, covered, for 30 mins or so.
Roll out the pastry to cover your tin, and be not too thin or thick. Tuck into the (lined) tin, and prick base. Trim and tidy edges. Bake for 10-15 mins in 180-200C oven, until base is mostly cooked, before filling pastry. This is a pretty robust pastry. It shouldn’t sink, or misbehave much, for example you shouldn’t even need to blind bake (with beans), just to pre-bake before filling.
Filling
For filling, you can pretty much use whatever you want I reckon, enough to fill the pie. I typically use fillings based on either:
- Mushroom, onion, butter beans, kale, herbs and spices
- Sweet potato or pumpkin, onion, black beans, spinach, herbs and spices
I recommend having some sort of veggie ‘protein’ (i.e. the mushrooms, and/or beans/lentils) – this makes it ‘filling’. You will want the bulk of the pie filling to consist of this and/or more of a starchy vegetable (pumpkin / sweet potato) or grated cauliflower. Grated cauliflower makes a great ‘filler’. Consider colours – adding some green or red is nice, but these ingredients are typically quite ‘wet’ so shouldn’t make up the bulk of the pie.
In terms of cooking the filling, I’ll typically do it in this order:
- cook mushrooms, onion, mustard seeds, then
- add in cooked beans, cooked sweet potato, grated cauliflower
- add in herbs and spices, then
- add in greens, then
- add in ~ 1/2 c water with 1tbs flour at the end, to thicken and bring all the filling together
You want the final filling to hold together ok, but certainly not be too wet.
After filling the pre-baked pastry, top with sesame seeds or something to make it pretty, before baking for ~15-30 mins to help finish the crust and bring it all together.
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