Here, I’ve combined all those glorious elements into another comfort food favourite – the pithivier. These traditional French pies are usually made with a frangipane filling but can also be savoury. I’ve opted to fill my discs of puff pastry with cauliflower cheese, butternut squash and a delicious blend of spices. In place of egg wash, they’re glazed with a thyme and honey brown butter which provides a gorgeously-golden finish.

The combination of butternut squash and a homemade gratin spice blend will give you all the autumnal feels you crave after a long day at work. If you don’t have butternut, you can use pumpkin or acorn squash instead. The gratin spice blend is unbelievable in everything from dauphinoise potatoes to mac and cheese. Make a big batch and stow it away in an airtight jar to give your oven-baked dinners an instant flavour boost.

These pithiviers can be made with puff or rough puff pastry, either homemade or shop-bought. If you’re in a hurry, shop-bought puff pastry is ideal.

The most important element here is to ensure the filling is completely cold before you encase it in the pastry. This will ensure the pastry bottom stays crispy. You can even assemble these a day ahead, cover in cling film and refrigerate – or freeze for another time.

Serve with a leafy green salad and follow up with a hot chocolate pudding.

Spiced Butternut and Cauliflower Cheese Pithiviers
Makes 6

Ingredients

700g puff pastry – shop bought or homemade

For the filling:
320g butternut squash, diced (2cm squares), cooked
300g cauliflower florets, chopped finely, cooked but not completely
1 tbsp olive oil
50g butter
50g flour
320ml whole milk
1 1/2 tsp gratin spice mix
120g sharp Cheddar, grated
1/2 tsp dried English mustard
1 tsp wholegrain mustard
2 green chillies, finely sliced
1 fat clove garlic, crushed
Salt and black pepper, to taste
2 sprigs of thyme, stripped

For the thyme and honey brown butter glaze:
60g unsalted butter
3 sprigs of thyme, stripped
1 tbsp honey
Small pinch turmeric

For the gratin spice mix:
1 tbsp cloves
3 tbsp whole coriander seeds
2 tbsp cumin seeds
2 tbsp mace
2 tbsp cardamom seeds
1 tbsp sesame seeds
4 dried red chillies
8 star anise

2 dried bay leaves

3-inch piece cinnamon, broken

Method

1. To make the spice blend: Toast the spices in a dry pan until aromatic. Allow to cool, then grind in a spice grinder or coffee grinder. Pass through a fine-hold sieve and store in an airtight jar.

2. To make the filling: Melt the butter in a pan, add the olive oil and garlic. Next, add in the flour and stir to make a roux. Allow to cook gently, stirring all the time until very lightly golden. Whisk in the whole milk, a little at a time until fully incorporated. Add a little bit of the spice mix and keep whisking until hot but not boiling.

3. Next, add in the cheese, two kinds of mustard, chilli and keep whisking until smooth. Season with salt and pepper, stir in the thyme. Fold in the cooked squash and cauliflower. Set aside until cold.

4. To make the glaze: Melt the butter in a small saucepan and cook until very lightly golden brown. Add the thyme leaves and set aside to cool. When warm, stir in the honey.

5. Roll out just under half of the pastry on a lightly floured surface to 5mm thick. Cut out six 12 inch-diameter rounds. Take remaining pastry and roll to 5mm thick. Cut out six 14 inch-diameter rounds. Divide cold filling mixture among half the 12-inch pastry rounds, mounding up in centre and leaving a 1 inch border. Brush the edges with water and top with the larger pastry rounds, removing any air around the mixture and pressing edges to seal – I used the back of a spoon to seal them up properly. Brush tops with the glaze and score a scalloped pattern on the top of each with the back of a knife. Place on an oven tray lined with baking paper and refrigerate for 30 minutes.

6. Pre-heat the oven to 180C. Bake the pithiviers for 25-30 minutes until completely puffed up and golden all over.

Serve with a leafy green salad, then go make yourself a hot chocolate before bed.

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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.

Do you have a recipe request? Ask me on Facebook or Twitter.

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I haven’t fallen off of the edge of the Earth, just in case you’ve been wondering where your favourite Gujarati food blogger has gone. I hope you’ve been wondering – have you been wondering?

I trust you all had a delicious Christmas and New Year. I’ve been spending my precious time recovering from the most brutal lurgies seen this side of London. I’m ashamed to admit I’ve hardly cooked, feeding only on unsatisfying take-aways and frozen pizzas. Interestingly, I’ve lost weight on this questionable diet full of fat, salt and cholesterol. FYI, I’m not endorsing this depressing diet in any way – just observing an unexpected fact.

I cannot begin to describe how much I’ve missed blogging and sharing my favourite recipes with you. Working full-time really takes its toll, especially now I must resign blogging to the weekends. Thankfully, I’m feeling much better now and can’t wait to get back to dreaming, cooking, photographing and writing about my favourite things to eat.

I have some big dreams for 2011 and the determination to accomplish them, so I hope you stick around and see them through with me. I promise you won’t regret it.

Something simple to start the New Year never goes amiss, and this recipe for Cheese and Potato Puff Pies are just the ticket. Soft cubes of rosemary-peppered potato are combined with sautéed onions, mature cheddar and crème fraîche, then the whole thing is enveloped in crisp, buttery puff pastry. Trust me, this is the kind of dinner you want to eat on a cold January evening with a crisp green salad.

Green chillies are my personal fiendish addition, but you don’t have to add them if you’re cooking for kids or don’t like chillies. However, I think a mild kick of chilli is exactly the type of cuddle simple potatoes, crème fraîche and pastry needs.

You can present your pies in any way you like – I’ve shown two of the simplest ways here. One version is a pot pie, with the filling piled into a ramekin or pie dish, topped with a slice of red Leicester cheese and a sheet of puff pastry.

Another way to serve these is by wrapping them into traditional crescent shapes, reminiscent of the time-honoured English pasties. Somehow, I think these are the way they should look – although the choice is entirely yours.

Cheese and Potato Puff Pies
(makes approx. 6-8 depending on size and shape)

Ingredients

2 medium potatoes (450g), peeled and cubed
2 large onions (450g), peeled and roughly chopped
250ml/200g crème fraîche
120g mature cheddar cheese, grated
8 slices Red Leicester Cheese slices
1 tbsp olive oil
1 hot green chilli, chopped finely
2 tsp dried rosemary
1 clove garlic, minced
1 tsp sugar
Salt to taste
500g puff pastry, thawed if frozen
Milk to glaze the tops of the pies

Method

1. Boil the potatoes in salted water until they’re just cooked but still hold their shape. Drain and set aside.

2. Heat the oil in a heavy-based saucepan and add half of the chopped onions, sugar and 1 tsp rosemary. Sauté for about 10-15 minutes until just golden at the edges. Add the rest of the onions and garlic and cook for a further 5 minutes. Allow to cool.

3. Combine the potatoes, onions, crème fraîche, grated cheddar, 1 tsp rosemary, chilli and salt. Mix thoroughly.

4. If you’re making pot pies, pile the filling into pie dishes or ramekins. Top with a trimmed slice of Red Leicester cheese. Brush the edges of the dish with some milk. Roll out the pastry about ½ cm thick and cut out a disc slightly larger than the top of the dish and place the pastry over the top, edges overlapping the sides. Brush with milk all over, make a slit in the top and place in a 200°C oven for around 20-25 minutes or until golden and puffy.

5. To make traditional pasty shapes, divide the pastry into 6 equal portions and roll out each to about 7inches, using flour if it sticks. Place a slice of Red Leicester cheese in the middle of a pastry circle, top with around 2-2 ½ tbsps of the filling. Brush the edges of the pastry with milk and fold one end over to meet the opposite end. Stick down firmly and crimp with a fork. Repeat for each pie.

6. Place each pie on a non-stick baking tray, make a slit in the top and bake 200°C oven for around 20-25 minutes or until golden and puffy.

Serve with a crisp green salad and not much else. If this doesn’t make up for my time away, I don’t know what would.

I’ll be back. Honest.
 

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