Christmas pie

A hearty pie, perfect to grace any festive table. Serve with roast potatoes, carrots, sprouts, cranberry sauce, all the trimmings and, of course, delicious homemade gravy. You can watch the pie being made in our festive film. http://www.vegsoc.org/festivefilms

• Preparation: 30 mins
• Cooking: 75 mins
• Serves: 6

What you need:

Pie filling:

• 2 onions, finely chopped
• 130g leeks, finely chopped
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 2 cloves garlic, crushed
• 225g mushrooms, sliced
• 25g dried cranberries
• 340g butter beans, chopped (tinned)
• 250g tinned cooked chestnuts, sliced
• 50g hazelnuts, chopped
• 2 tsp fresh thyme, chopped
• 1 tsp English mustard
• Salt and pepper, to taste
• 1 tbsp cranberry sauce

Hot water crust pastry:

• 150ml water
• 115g vegetable suet
• 330g plain white flour
• � tsp salt

What you do:

For the pie filling:

1. Gently fry the onions and leeks in the oil for 5 minutes.
2. 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.
3. Season with salt and pepper, then add the remaining mushrooms and remove from the heat.

For the pastry:

1. Preheat the oven to 180C/Gas 4.
2. Heat the water in a saucepan. When boiled add the suet and stir vigorously. Remove from the heat.
3. Place the flour into a large bowl and stir in the salt. Add the water and suet mixture.
4. Carefully gather the mixture into a ball, turn onto a work surface and knead the pastry for five minutes.
5. Lightly grease a 20cm spring loaded or loose bottomed deep pie case.
6. Take approximately 1/2 of the pastry and roll it out. You should not need to dust your work surface with flour. Carefully line your pie case.
7. 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.
8. 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.
9. 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.

Cook's tip:

You'll need a lightly greased 20cm spring loaded or loose bottomed deep pie case.

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