Super Stargazey Pie

Hey everyone! For my second British food inspired recipe, I thought long and hard about what kind of dish I wanted to make. Because I absolutely hate most English stuff, like mega hate it! So the Baron linked me to this absolutely absurd looking thing called a Stargazey Pie from Cornwall, now this is a pie that has an assortment of fish poking from within a pie. Like how sinister and ghastly would that be to be sitting at a table and plop, out comes the lovely looking pie and it's got eyes. 9 sets of eyes. Absolutely no.

So I thought... let's do this in two ways. Let's do a typical 'pie and mash', meets 'fish and chips', meets 'stargazey pie'. And I came up with a fun kid friendly version and a really nice alternative! So let's start off with the alternative.

Ingredients

• Purple Carrots

• Purple Sprouting Broccoli

• Romanesca Broccoli

• Peas

• Vegan Cheese

• Ready Roll Puff Pastry (Vegan or Vegetarian for this one)

• Flour

• Almond Milk

• Mustard Powder

• Mustard Seeds

• Peppercorns

• Olive Oil

• Vegan Bacon

• White Onion

• Breadcrumbs

So let's start off with the pastry. I was hunting high and low for short crust pastry, that didn't have butter in and I found this bizarre puff pastry sheet which was a supermarket own brand? It was not what I had intended so this was an experiment. I sliced a circle for the oiled dish, I used olive oil to keep it from sticking. Then cut out a length which makes the rim of the dish. I then mixed linseed oil with almond milk and washed all over the pie.

I cooked the pie base for 15 minutes until it was puffy and golden, and I created some nice stars to decorate with. I then used a glass to de-air the pie after it had settled, ready to rebake later. I didn't want it to be too puffy so this kinda worked.

Then in a bowl I cooked white onion, peppercorns, vegan bacon, made a simple roux, recipe all over this series. Then combined mustard seeds, mustard powder and salt and pepper. Combined with the cooked off bacon and this is the yummiest base.

I cooked out some green peas, I combined into the sauce and layered, I then coated that with breadcrumbs and added the stars!

I grabbed some sliced up romanesca broccoli, it looks so pretty! I then grabbed some purple sprouting broccoli and purple carrots, roasted in honey and seasoning and olive oil for thirty minutes. I popped the pie back in for the last 15 and it was a delicious, amazingly tasty twist on a classic.

So here is the pretty adult version and I loved the taste, it was too delicious! Let me know if you try this one!

So let's start with the second variation. This time I used shortcrust pastry and I could not find shortcrust pastry that was vegan, so I thought... fuck it. I want a pie. I'm having a pie day. And so I did. Now this is laziness in the extreme because I can actually make shortcrust pastry from scratch and it is not hard to replace the butter with an alternative ahaha. But I give variety and flavor to my recipeeez.

I created two tart bases in the same way as before, but this time I used baking beans which help to flatten the shortcrust pastry whilst cooking. I cooked the two bases for ten minutes. 

Instead of the vegan bacon, I used quorn pieces and created the same base! It is such an indulgent filling and I was thinking of stilton and broccoli as an inspiration.

I created one with just the romanesca brocolli and one with peas, the peas is a kid favourite as we experimented and I lined them both with the quorn mixture and then the veg. Back in the oven for 15 minutes.

Here is the two options as straight out the oven!

So in sequence I grabbed some thickems fries and cooked them out for half an hour in salt and olive oil, served with some spicy ketchup and here we are. It's so easy and a new take on a British classic. I was lazy with the vegetarian pastry haha, but it was for a family feast so it went over well. 

Let me know what you try out at home, don't forget to hit like and send me your questions in the comments!