Recipe of the week: Spring pie
This vegan pie from Bettina Campolucci-Bordi's Celebrate has the flavours of a spring quiche, without the animal products.
For the dough
- 150g rice flour
- 150g gluten-free flour mix (can be substituted with good-quality flour if you have no issues with gluten)
- 35g chickpea flour
- Pinch of sea salt
- 100ml rapeseed oil or olive oil
- 150ml-200 ml of water
For the filling
- 600g organic tofu
- 200ml plant milk (I prefer coconut milk)
- 2tbs of linseeds
- 1-2tbs of yellow curry powder
- 2tbs of olive oil
- Salt and pepper to taste
Seasonal spring veggies. Use anything that is in season, but as it is spring I have used:
- A handful of asparagus
- A handful of kale
- A handful of tenderstem broccoli or purple sprouted broccoli
- 1 bok choy
- A bit of chicory
- Fresh ramps
Preheat your oven to 180º and start off with your dough. Add all the flours: rice, chickpea, gluten-free flour mix or normal flour if you are not intolerant into a bowl. Then add oil, water and a sprinkling of salt and start mixing your dough until it is well incorporated and you can start kneading out all the bumps. You should have a lovely firm dough ball. Cover and set aside for 15 minutes (not in the fridge).
Now for the filling. Crumble the tofu into a blender along with the rest of the ingredients: linseeds, plant milk, curry powder, salt, pepper and some olive oil. Blitz in a blender until smooth and set aside.
By this time your dough will have rested. Sprinkle flour on a dry work surface and put your beautifully formed dough on the table and start rolling it out with a rolling pin one bit at a time. If needed, add extra sprinkles of flour to keep the rolling pin from sticking. Once you have rolled it out to your desired size, slowly loosen it up from the work surface ready to transfer to your pie form. For aesthetics I would suggest using a rectangular pie form. Gently lay the dough into your form and start shaping accordingly on the sides. If there are bits missing, add them with the overflow of dough that you might have in other areas. Push gently with a fork on the sides and puncture the dough at the bottom so that it can cook evenly. Put the pie crust in the oven for 10 minutes to precook before filling it.
While the pie is cooking, prepare your spring veggies by giving them a wash, patting them dry and cutting off the hard bottom bits from the broccoli, asparagus and the bok choy. I save the bok choy bottom for the pie as it looks very pretty. De-stem the kale. Heat some olive oil in a pan and get all your veggies in and lightly fry. Be careful to not get them too brown and then gently turn to the other side. Once cooked, set aside until assembly.
Once the pie crust is light brown and half-cooked it is ready to be filled with spring veggies and lovely filling. Start off with the golden tofu filling. Pour it in and even it out and give it an extra sprinkling of salt and pepper.
Then add your half-cooked veggies, arrange beautifully and slightly push into the filling, especially the fragrant ramps. Once everything is in the pie casing, cook in the oven for another 20-25 minutes until the filling is firm and veggies golden brown.
Add some extra sprinkles of chilli if you wish and serve with a big salad.
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