Vegan-pie

Rebirth of one of my favorite old recipe, or the secret how can you make happy a vegetarian person!

A bejegyzés magyarul itt olvasható.

The pie!

Neil will visit us tomorrow, so time is here to post the recipe of that cookie, which I made, when we visited him a few weeks ago. Neil is a mysterious man for me. He is a Scotsman, he has a kilt (at home, in Scotland), and he is vegetarian. Inviting a vegetarian person for dinner is a huge challenge, isn’t it? Well, I don’t think so. There are many ways to cook for these people, even if you are not vegetarian! You don’t have to think about tofu, soybean, or carrot, there are many other options too!

Neil and me 

Let’s see one of my old recipes! I found this shiny pearl approx. 5 year ago in a Hungarian women magazine (Nők Lapja), the author is Mari Lajos. (Yes, you remember well, she is my favorite cookbook writer!) This recipe was amazing at first time, but I was a little bit amateur in that time. I am older now and corrected my previous mistakes; also I have added a some more ingredients.

You can choose and use this recipe, when:

        (1)    you have to make something salty,

        (2)    you have to make something meat-free  

        (3)    you are going to a party and you would like to make something special

       (4)    you have to make something fast and healthy!

Ingredients: (If you have a 22 cm diameter ceramic pie mold!)

(1)    For the salty short bread:

200 g flour

100 g butter

1 egg yolk

1 big tbs sour cream

1 tsp salt

1 tsp baking soda

(2)    For the veggie-filling:

1 zucchini (medium size)

1-1 Bell pepper and red pepper

1 carrot (or few small)

10 small cocktail tomatos

few olives

1 onion (medium size)

(3)    For the sour cream dressing:

1 small sour cream (150 g)

1 big tbs ketchup

spices, like: oregano, basil, black pepper, salt, parsley (1-1 tsp)

1 egg yolk

3 tsp starch

100 g good melting cheese (mozzarella, Edam) and a little bit parmesan

+ 1 tbs bread crumbs

Good to know:

Short breads are the easiest pastries in the world. If you make sweet pastry, you have to observe the 3:2:1 rule, which means 3 unit flour+2 unit butter+ 1unit sugar. In contrast, the rate of salted short bread is 2:1, which means 2 unit flour+1 unit butter. The other ingredients, like egg yolk and sour cream are always constant. Don’t forget: using the egg white is a huge mistake, because it makes the pastry harder, while sour cream makes it softer! The other key of good short breads is the cold butter!

This patry looks like quite small, but don't worry, it will be enough!

Making the shortbread:

Crumble the flour, salt and baking soda with the cold butter pieces with fast movements than add the egg yolk and sour cream to the cold (!) crumb. Mix all these ingredients and knead the pastry! Pay attention to fast movements and constant cold temperature of your dough! (Until you slice the vegetables the dough can rest in the fridge, or you can knead the pastry one-night before baking the pie.)

Preparing the filling and dressing:

Slice up and salt the zucchini than fry it on a little bit of olive oil. Slice up the Bell pepper, red pepper, carrot and onion and fry them together in the rest of olive oil. It will take for 5-7 min before you turn off the heating adds a little bit black pepper and salt to the veggie-mix. Slice up the tomato and olive, but you don’t have to fry them! Let this stuff become cold and make the dressing!

Mix the sour cream, egg yolk and ketchup, than add the spices to this mix. Add the starch to this mix and blend it! You can add the cheese to this dressing, but probably it is easier to put the cheese separately to the surface of the veggie-mix.

Framing the pie:

Roll out the dough for a 25 cm diameter circle, put it into the pie mold and adjust it to the mold, than sting it often with a fork. Put the dough to the oven for 15-20 minutes at 175°C. You have to prebake the pastry until it became drier and light gold brown! The pastry will rise up under baking because of baking powder. Leaving out this ingredient won’t solve it, because the pastry rise up a little bit without baking powder too. There are 2 easy ways to prevent the rising. You can cover the pastry with baking paper and fill the mold with beans or special ceramic baking balls. The weight on the surface of pastry will prevent rising. (Don’t forget, if you use once the bean, you can’t cook it once more!) It’s worthy to buy these ceramic balls, because you can wash and reuse them again. If you don’t want to use this option, you can push down the pastry 2-3 times under baking, and then you have to put a small plate to it under the pastry to cool down. The efficacy of this method is the same than previous one has.

The row and the pre-baked pastry!

Tailoring process:

Let the pastry cool down then cover the surface with 1 tbs pastry crumb. It will take up the extra water coming out from the vegetables and dressing.

Put the grilled zucchini slices to the form, overlay it with the paprika-onion mix, then add the tomato and olive pieces to it. Cover the surface with the cheese then pour the dressing on the vegi-cheese surface. You can taste it with more additionally fresh parsley and parmesan. Put it into the oven for 20 minutes at 150-160°C. The dressing has to become solid and its surface will become darkyellow. It’s easy to over bake the pie, so you mustn’t use too high temperature or too long baking time!

Vegan pie, step by step!

If I have to say the truth, this pie is brilliant! You can make it fast, the dressing is totally simple and the vegetables are healthy! The children will love it too!

  

The brilliand pie!