A hearty pie, perfect to grace any autumn table. Serve with roast potatoes, carrots, sprouts and, of course, delicious homemade gravy.
Ingredients
For the pie filling
- 2 onions finely chopped
- 130g leeks finely chopped
- 1 tbsp olive oil
- 2 cloves garlic crushed
- 225g mushrooms sliced
- 25g dried cranberries
- 1 x 400g can butter beans chopped
- 400g cooked chestnuts sliced
- 50g hazelnuts chopped
- 2 tsp fresh thyme chopped
- English mustard to taste
- Salt and pepper to taste
- 1 tbsp cranberry sauce
For the hot water crust pastry
- 150ml water
- 115g vegetable suet
- 330g plain white flour
- ½ tsp salt
Method
- For the pie filling: Gently fry the onions and leeks in the oil for 5 minutes.
- Add the garlic, 150g of the mushrooms, dried cranberries, butter beans, chestnuts, hazelnuts, thyme and mustard. Continue to cook for 10 minutes, the mixture should be fairly dry.
- Season with salt and pepper, then add the remaining mushrooms and remove from the heat.
- For the pastry: Preheat the oven to 180°C/Gas 4.
- Heat the water in a saucepan. When boiled add the suet and stir vigorously. Remove from the heat.
- Place the flour into a large bowl and stir in the salt. Add the water and suet mixture.
- Carefully gather the mixture into a ball, turn onto a work surface and knead the pastry for five minutes.
- Lightly grease a 20cm spring loaded or loose bottomed deep pie case.
- Take approximately ¾ of the pastry and roll it out. You should not need to dust your work surface with flour. Carefully line your pie case.
- Spread the cranberry sauce over the pastry base and add your pie filling. Fold excess pastry over towards the centre of the pie. Trim excess pastry, leaving a lip of 3cm.
- Roll out the remaining pastry to make a lid. Place it on the top of your pie, trim excess pastry, then using your fingertips pinch the two layers of pastry together to seal in the filling. Brush the top with a little soya milk and place in the preheated oven for 1 hour, or until the pastry is golden brown.
- To serve, carefully release the catch on the pie case and lift onto a serving dish. Serve with ‘Sumptuous homemade gravy’ and a selection of vegetables.
