If there's one thing you might have noticed about me if you've been following my cooking for the past couple of years it's that I love pie. It's taken me a while to master the classic fruit pies and make some solid tasty vegan versions of those, and now that I have that down I figured it was time to give a savoury version a go! I love a little handheld snack pie, and these mushroom and minced "meat" pies turned out amazing.
I used both a classic pie crust on the bottom and a layer of puff pastry for the top, which gives them a perfect crunchy texture all the way around, and an extra flaky and buttery top. You can choose to use regular pie dough as the top layer, but I highly recommend giving the puff pastry topping a go, it turned out super delicious!
I served mine with my classic miso mashed potatoes, as well as some peas and vegan gravy. However you can feel free to serve these however you like, I guarantee they will be delicious either way! Hope you give this recipe a go and feel free to tag me @mealsbymiri on Instagram so I can see how they turn out.
Ingredients:
Pastry
300g all purpose flour
150g dairy free unsalted butter
30g white granulated sugar
1 tsp fine table salt (reduce to 0.75tsp if using salted butter)
Approx 50g cold water
Filling: 200g vegan minced "meat"
1/2(100g) yellow onion
2 cloves garlic
175g button mushrooms
150ml water + 1/2 cube vegetable stock
1tbsp all purpose flour
1tbsp olive oil
1/4 tsp dried thyme 🙂
salt and pepper to taste
Additionally:
4 sheets puff pastry for topping
1tbsp butter melted for brushing
Method: To make the pie crust; add the flour, sugar and salt to a bowl and give it a good whisk. Add chunks of dairy free butter and either pinch them with your fingers or use a pastry cutter to slice it into small chunks through the flour. The chunks should be about pea sized and evenly distributed throughout the dry mixture. Gradually add your ice cold water while carefully kneading/stirring until it begins to come together. You may need to adjust the amount of water slightly, but you'll know it's done once it comes together as one shaggy dough that you can carefully knead a disc. Do not kneed too much as you want to keep the chunks of butter intact. This will give you that flaky pie crust we're looking for!
Wrap each piece in cling film and chill for at least 1 hour in the fridge. Make the filling by finely chopping (mincing) the onion and dicing the mushrooms. Cook the mushrooms and onions in a pan with olive oil and a sprinkle of salt on medium heat until the the onion is brown and translucent and the mushrooms are brown and golden. Add the mince and garlic cook until the mince is browned. Add flour and fry for another couple of minutes. Add the stock cube and water and simmer until thickened. Set the filling aside to cool while shaping the crusts. Remove the puff pastry sheets from the freezer to let them thaw at this stage.
Roll the pie dough out into a thin even sheet, about 0,5cm thick or less. Using a 11cm diameter cookie cutter (the size you need may depend on how big your muffin tray is), cut out 8 circles of the dough and place into a muffin tray, gently pressing it in making sure the dough is covering the entire bottom and all the way up the walls of each liner. Fill each crust almost all the way up to the edge with pie filling, and use a smaller cookie cutter (same diameter as your muffin liner, in my case 7cm), to cut out pieces of puff pastry. Place these on top of each pie and do your best to crimp the puff pastry and pie crust together with a fork around the edges (doesn't have to be perfect, it doesn't matter if they separate a bit while cooking). Slice a small hole in the top of the puff pastry cover to allow steam to escape the pie while cooking, and brush with some melted vegan butter. Bake the pies in a preheated oven at 200 degrees Celsius for 24-30 minutes until golden and puffy on top. Remove from the oven and let cool for a few minutes before removing the pies from the muffin tray and allowing to cool further on a wire rack. Serve with some mashed potatoes, gravy or any other sides you may want. Enjoy!
Comments