Mmmm, pie. What could be nicer? I had some spinach from the veg box hanging about, but I struggle to do healthful steamed things with it, despite loving the stuff, a lot. So I made these lardy pasties. Aren’t they pretty?
Buy some puff pastry*, roll it out and cut into circles. I made three big ones, using a side plate to cut around, and two small ones using a coffee mug. Place the pastry discs in the fridge to rest. (I cannot stress enough the importance of allowing pastry to rest. It means that nothing made with it is ever really a quick meal, but prevents the shrinkage that so often makes pies go pear-shaped.)
Steam your spinach, refresh and leave to drain. Saute an onion, a couple of garlic cloves and some mushrooms until golden. Grate whatever cheese you have in the fridge that needs using up (I used Wensleydale and gruyere). Squeeze the spinach dry and chop it very finely. Mix with the onion, mushroom and garlic, a generous grating of nutmeg, the cheese and plenty of S&P. You’ll also need to add some sort of non-runny liquid at this stage to hold it all together. A small amount of white sauce would work, as would creme fraiche, cream or yoghurt if you’re feeling vrtuous. I used the garlic cream cheese in the purple tub from Lidl, I confess – I love the stuff and it only needed a couple of tablespoons. Anyway, I think I mentioned that this is not health food.
Allow the mixture to cool a bit. Place a goodly blob on each pastry disc, brush the edges with beaten egg, seal and crimp like crazy (you can see from the pic that despite my best efforts, the little ones still burst their seams a bit). Glaze the pasties with more egg, prick the tops and rest again. Bake at 220 for about 20 minutes.
I made some jacket new potatoes to go with this, and would have made a tomato and basil salad too had time permitted. The spuds are amazing. Rinse them and salt them and bake them in the oven for about 25 minutes. The skins crisp and they have all that wonderful baked potato flavour in a fraction of the time it takes to make full-sized ones. I dipped them in mayonnaise, and I am not ashamed to admit it. Well, only a bit.
* Full disclosure: I have never made puff pastry. Even at the height of my pastry obsession as a teenager, I used to look at Connie Spry’s admirably clear instructions and think: “Can I really be arsed?”
Mmmmm… sounds delish and that pic looks so good. Nothing like a spinach pie!