Thursday, September 2, 2010

Leek, Cheese and Walnut Pie with Wholemeal Cumin Pastry

I had a vision. A vision of leeks slowly cooked in butter and mixed with cheese, fragrantly relaxing onto my plate like a hippy earth mother at peace with the world. So I made a pie.

- Make some pastry. Take a cup of plain flour, a cup of wholemeal flour and 4 ounces of butter and a pinch of salt and rub them together with your fingertips until they resemble breadcrumbs. Mix in a teaspoon of ground cumin seeds and half a teaspoon of whole seeds then mix in just enough cold water to make it all stick together, 4 tablespoonsful in my case.
- Wrap the pastry in clingfilm and pop into the fridge for the time being.
- Now the filling. Put a frying pan on to heat with a iittle oil and a slice of butter.
- Peel and chop an onion and four or five leeks and put them in the pan top cook slowly for a good fifteen or twenty minutes.
- Turn the oven on to hot, say 200 celcius.
- once the leeks are nearly cooked, they should be translucent and turning honey coloured, drop in a handfull of walnut pieces and then stir in a dessertspoonful of plain flour.
- Roll out the pastry and line a deep dish with it, I could only find a flan dish so used a 7” cake tin. I think the metal tin helps keep the pastry crisp with the wet filling. Cut off the excess and roll it out again for the top.
- Now mix a handful or so of a nice cheese with some taste to it, cheddar in my case, into the leeks and themn spoon it all into the pastry case.
- Put the top on, squash the edges and cut a notch in the middle to let the steam out and put in the oven until golden brown on top.
- If you are lucky and allow the pie to cool a little you can turn it out onto a plate to reveal it’s full glory.

I served ours with some boiled and fried potatoes and a green salad of well . . . lettuce leaves and a honey mustard dressing.

It was lovely by the way . . .



ps the photo has the 70's retro look because it was getting dark at teatime and my photo had that bright orange look of artificial light. Come to think of it the cookery books in the 70's tended to have very colour saturated photos anyway so maybe it was appropriate after all.

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5 comments:

Sweet Mary said...

I want it !!!

Peter said...

lol - I was beginning to think we had some kind of arctic mouse living in the fridge because the left over piece of pie kept getting smaller . . . but I suspect it was really Nicola doing the nibbling . . .

peter

christine said...

One of the things I love the most about visiting great blogs like yours is I get to not only see food I've never seen prepared before, but you get to read about how they taste. Love it..... & now I'm hungry .... again :) If you wont mind I'd love to guide Foodista readers to your post. Just add the foodista widget to the end of this post so it will appear in the Foodista pages and it's all set, Thanks!

Anonymous said...

Awesome! I am in love with leeks at the moment.

Peter said...

Thankyou - you cannot do worse than fall in love with leek (I hope you are very happy together ;-)

And congrats on one thousand hits by the way

peter

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