To demonstrate how easy this is, I’ve pulled together a short video where you can see how it’s rolled and coiled for that awesome shape. As much as I love this, it wouldn’t be half as amazing to eat if it wasn’t for the epic Carrot and Cucumber Mustard Salad. It’s loaded with hot and sour flavours which cuts right through the richness of the pie.

I glazed these pies with a combination of melted butter and turmeric for as a cheeky replacement for egg wash. Nobody will ever know.

This is perfect for serving up when you have friends over for dinner, taking along to picnics and stowing away in the freezer prior to baking for a quick meal.

Watch the video, read the recipe, make it for your friends and family and let me know how it goes. I love seeing the pictures of what you create at home so keep ‘em coming. BTW, I get to say hello to you again today!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SFRhzjynokI&feature=youtu.be

Palak Paneer Snails
Serves 6

Ingredients 

700g leaf spinach
250g paneer, crumbled into large pieces
250g ricotta
1 tbsp ground fennel seeds
1 tbsp sunflower oil
1 tbsp coarse semolina
1 medium red onion, chopped finely
1 tbsp grated ginger
4 cloves garlic, crushed
1 tbsp garam masala
4 green chillies, chopped
1 tsp cumin seeds
Salt to taste
16 sheets filo pastry (approx. 12″ x 22″)
200g butter, melted
Pinch or turmeric
Sesame and nigella seeds

For the Cucumber and Carrot Mustard Salad

2 large cucumbers
5 carrots
1 tbsp sunflower oil
1 tbsp mustard seeds
1 tbsp English mustard
1 tsp salt
1 tsp sugar (optional)
Juice 2 lemons
Fried green chillies (optional)

Method

1. To make the pies, heat the sunflower oil in a pan and add the cumin. Allow to sizzle before adding the red onions. Sauté for a moment and add the ginger, garlic, chillies, garam masala and salt. Cook for 5 minutes and set aside.

2. Place the spinach in a colander (you might have to do it in batches) and pour boiling water from the kettle on top. Rinse with cold water and squeeze out all the excess water. Repeat for all the spinach.

3. Pile the spinach into a large bowl, add the paneer, onion mixture, ground fennel seeds, semolina and ricotta. Combine thoroughly.

4. To assemble, place one sheet of filo pastry on a work surface. Brush it generously with butter before adding your next sheet. Repeat the layering process until you have 4 filo layers.

5. Along the longest edge of the pastry, make a line of filling. Roll it up as tightly as you can without breaking it. Roll it 1 ½ times over itself. If you have excess pastry, trim it with a pizza cutter.

6. Once you have a pastry snake, brush it with more butter, and then take one edge to start rolling it into a coil shape.

7. Take some additional butter and mix it with the turmeric. Brush this all over the top of the coil. Sprinkle with nigella and sesame seeds.

8. Repeat for the next three snails.

9. Place your four palak paneer snails onto a baking tray and wrap with cling film. Refrigerate for 30 minutes. Bake for 45 minutes at 160C.

To make the Cucumber and Carrot Mustard Salad

1. Make the salad a couple of hours before for best results. Chop one of the carrots with a crinkle cutter or slice them thinly. Using a peeler, ribbon the other cucumber all the way around. Don’t include too many of the seeds as they’ll make the salad watery. Save them for a snack later. Ribbon the carrots in the same ways as the cucumber.

2. To make the dressing, heat the oil in a saucepan and add the mustard seeds. Wait for the mustard seeds to pop and crackle, and then add the mustard, lemon juice, salt and the optional sugar. Mix this all together and then turn off the heat. Pour the dressing over the cucumber and carrot and mix together. Allow it to stand for around 30 minutes. Lots of water will come out of the salad. With clean hands, squeeze the salad removing excess water. You’ll be left with firm vegetables and slightly pickled flavour. So good.

Love Sanjana

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This chocolate tart makes me feel that way too. A crumbly, sweet shortcrust pastry base (without eggs, might I add), ridiculously smooth and rich chocolate filling with the most incredible roasted white chocolate swirl which takes me back to the days of sitting on the steps of our family shop eating Caramacs… except there’s loads more chocolate involved.

If you’ve never roasted your white chocolate, you’ve been missing out. Gone will be the days you insist dark chocolate is superior to white. This whole time you had forgotten one amazing detail… it is that white chocolate can be transformed into the most beautiful caramel you ever tasted. 

Inspired by the baking guru that is David Lebovitz, I set to work making the roasted white chocolate, following his brilliant instructions to the letter – and you should too. 

  
One tweak I made was that I added a small amount of coconut oil out of fear my chocolate would seize. It resulted in a super smooth caramelized white chocolate with a hint of exotic coconut that of course, was most welcome. 

The dark chocolate filling is a glorious ganache which requires very little effort and no baking whatsoever. The best thing about the filling is that it sets so beautifully after a couple of hours in the fridge.

Cut yourself a piece and feel the cool chocolate filling melt in your mouth. I think it’s time you had the recipe now.

Eggless Dark Chocolate, Almond and Roasted White Chocolate Tart
(serves 8-10)

For the filling:

300g 70% cocoa dark chocolate
100g good-quality milk chocolate
400ml double cream
1 tbsp butter
2 tsp almond extract

For the Roasted White Chocolate Swirl:

300g good quality white chocolate, chopped into small pieces
2 tbsp coconut oil
1 tsp sea salt

For the pastry:

300g plain flour
125g unsalted butter, cold and cubed
1 tsp cornflour
2 tbsp icing sugar
3-4 tbsp buttermilk
Pinch of salt

Toasted flaked almonds, to garnish

Method

1. To make the roasted white chocolate, place the chocolate and coconut oil on an ovenproof tray. Place the tray in the oven and switch it on to 120C.

2. Allow to melt, stirring very gently every 10 minutes for around 60 minutes or until golden and caramel-like. Seriously, no matter how much you want to stick your finger in that melted chocolate – don’t. Instead, sprinkle over the sea salt and set aside.

3. To make the pastry: In a food processor, pulse together the ingredients for the pastry until you have a rough dough. Using your hands, bring the dough together on a clean surface. Don’t knead or handle it too much. Wrap the dough in cling film and place in the fridge for 30 minutes.

4. Lightly flour a large, clean surface and roll the pastry out until it’s 5-6mm thick. Roll it around your rolling pin and line a 9inch fluted tart tin with a loose bottom. If your dough tears slightly, don’t be afraid to patch it up. Leave some dough hanging over the edges. Place the tart on top of a flat baking sheet.

5. Place a large piece of food-safe cling film over the pastry and fill the top with flour. Pack it down slightly. This will ensure your pastry is beautifully even and doesn’t rise in the oven. Bake at 160C for 30 minutes.

6. Remove the tart from the oven and set aside for 10 minutes. Carefully remove the cling film filled with flour. Use a fork to prick holes all over the bottom of the pastry and return to the oven for a further 10 minutes or until golden.

7. Remove from the oven and allow to cool completely.

8. To make the dark chocolate filling: Heat the cream on a low heat until hot but not boiling. Remove from the heat. Add the chopped dark and milk chocolate, almond extract and butter and stir very gently until you have a luxurious, even chocolate mixture.

9. Trim the sides of the tart case, cutting away the excess pastry. Fill the tart with the chocolate mixture. Take dollops of the melted white chocolate mixture and swirl into the tart – you’ll need around half of it. Put the rest in a jar and use it to sandwich cakes and macarons or just spread it on toast.

10. Sprinkle over the toasted flaked almonds.

11. Place the tart in the fridge for 3-4 hours or overnight.

Love Sanjana

The post Eggless Dark Chocolate, Almond and Roasted White Chocolate Tart appeared first on Sanjana.Feasts.

It’s safe to say that when it comes to pastry-making, I’m no professional. However, when I was challenged via Facebook, to come up with a hearty lunch idea, I was determined to deliver something good. And we all know pies are good.

These mini pies (made in a muffin tin because as I’ve discovered, I’m rather ill-equipped) are stuffed with a mixture of sautéed Portobello and chestnut mushrooms, sharp feta cheese, kalonji seeds and lemon thyme. They’re perfectly portable so you won’t have any trouble taking a couple to work, and even though they’re small, they’ll fill your belly no matter what.

Hot water crust pastry is usually made with lard because butter is seen to have too much of a rich flavour for the traditional pork pies it’s used to make. Obviously there’s no lard lurking in my fridge, but there is plenty of butter. I think the butter in my pastry can stand up to the vegetarian filling because of the robust mushrooms and sharp feta having enough flavour to balance it out. However, you can use vegetable shortening if you prefer.

So, how do you get that golden yellow colour on your pie? I’ve been trying to work out an alternative to egg yolks for ages. Usually, recipes say to use milk as an alternative to egg wash, but I always find the pie top looks really anaemic when it comes out of the oven. Then I realised the answer had been staring me in the face the whole time – I warmed my milk and whisked in ½ teaspoon of turmeric before brushing onto the pastry lids. It wasn’t sticky and once baked, did a great job in colouring the pie tops, just like egg yolk would do.

I’ve used kalonji seeds and thyme to flavour the pie filling because they’re gentle and aromatic enough to compliment the mushrooms and cheese – which, by the way, don’t need much help becoming delicious at all.

I’d serve these with real English chips, salad and Yorkshire’s finest yellow lemonade (obvs Ben Shaws), either for lunch or dinner.

Mini Mushroom, Kalonji and Feta Pies
(makes 6 pies)

Ingredients

For the filling:

500g mushrooms, sliced (I used a mixture of Portobello and chestnut mushrooms)
100g feta cheese, crumbled
1 tbsp butter
3 cloves garlic, crushed
½ tsp kalonji seeds
1 tsp lemon thyme, picked through
½ tsp black pepper

For the vegetarian hot water crust pastry:

235g plain flour
55ml water
50ml skimmed milk
75g unsalted butter
1 tsp salt

Milk and turmeric to brush the pastry lids

Method

1. First, make the filling. Heat the butter in a large pan and add the kalonji seeds and garlic. Throw in all the mushrooms and combine. Leave on a low heat for five minutes, then once some moisture is released from the mushrooms, turn up the heat. Cook for a couple of minutes, then add the thyme and black pepper. Remove from the heat, place in a colander and allow to cool.

2. Once the filling is completely cooled, squeeze as much moisture as you can out of the mushrooms. Make sure you squeeze hard, otherwise your pastry will have a soggy bottom. Once you’ve done this, fold through the feta cheese and refrigerate.

3. Preheat the oven to 160°C.

4. To make the pastry, heat the water, milk and butter in a saucepan. Bring to the boil, then add in the flour. Stir with a spoon until it comes together, then turn out onto a floured surface and knead quickly until smooth and uniform.

5. Divide the dough into 6 even pieces, reserving 1/3 of each ball for the pie lid. Roll the first piece into a ball and use a rolling pin to make a circle, about 1/2cm thick to fit inside the hole of a muffin tin. Place inside the hole of the muffin tin and press to like the base, leaving a little overhang. Do this for the remaining 5 pieces of dough.

6. Fill each pastry case with mushrooms mixture, pressing down gently to make sure you get enough in.

7. Next, roll out the lids using the smaller dough balls, so they’re large enough to cover the pies and also allow you to crimp the edges to the little overhang you left on the bases. Make sure there are no gaps between the bases and lids.

8. Heat a little bit of milk in a bowl and add enough turmeric to get an egg yellow colour. Brush the tops of the pies.

9. Poke a small hole in the tops of each pie to allow steam to escape.

10. Bake in the preheated oven for 40 minutes or until golden.

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