I’m still following Weight Watchers (over three stone gone now – nearly there!) and while there are many recipes that are adaptable for those of us who are shunning butter and fatty cuts of meat and even cake, one thing I am really missing is a good pie. There is no comfort food like a proper pie with proper pastry – and that means the pastry has to go underneath the filling, not just on top. Otherwise it’s just a stew with a lid. My husband becomes most annoyed when we go out for a meal and he orders pie only to be presented with a stew with a lid, I’m pretty sure it would be a divorceable offence if it happened at home.
Goat’s Cheese and Lentil Filo Pie
Ingredients:
1 270g package of frozen filo pastry
Olive oil (I use an oil spray)
150g goat’s cheese
100g red lentils
1 big white onion, diced
1 big or 2 small courgettes, diced
1 pointy red pepper, diced
A handful of chestnut mushrooms, sliced finely
1 stock cube (whatever type you have is fine)
2 big carrots or 3 small ones, diced
2 cloves of garlic, crushed or sliced
2 sticks of celery, diced
1 tsp fennel seeds
1 tsp dried thyme
Pine nuts (just a few)
Spray a large saucepan with some olive oil, and fry the fennel seeds briefly over a high heat. Turn the heat down, and add the onion, garlic, celery and carrots, and cook gently for about five minutes until the onion is translucent. Add the red pepper, mushrooms and courgette and cook for another minute or two.
Add the lentils, thyme and enough hot water from a freshly-boiled kettle to cover it all with a little bit extra, and crumble in the stock cube. Bring to a simmer, cover the pan with a lid and cook for 15 minutes, by which time hopefully the lentils will have absorbed most of the water (if not, drain off any excess). Season with salt and pepper to taste, and let the mixture cool. When it’s cool, dice up the goat’s cheese and stir it in.
[While my pie filling was cooling, I went to my Weight Watchers meeting and learned that I had lost another 4lbs in the two weeks since I was last there – hurrah!]
Preheat the oven to 200 degrees C.
Now you want to find a clean tea towel, soak it with cold water and wring it out. Use this to cover your filo pastry while you’re not working with it, because it will dry out very quickly. A Pyrex or similar dish is great for this, but a squarish baking tin would be fine – just grease it with a little oil or butter first.
Use four sheets of filo for the base. Lay out the first left to right, trying to push it into the corners without tearing it, and leave the edges hanging over the baking dish. Spray or brush with olive oil (or indeed melted butter if you are not trying to be good). Lay out the next sheet on top of the first, top to bottom this time, and spray/brush with oil again. Repeat these two steps.
Now pour in your lentilly goaty cheesy filling and level the top. Cover it up with the overhanging edges of filo, and spray with oil. You should have about three sheets of filo left in the packet, and what I do is just scrunch them up and stick them on top so it looks spiky. You can be tidy if you like, I’m too lazy. Whatever you decide, make sure you oil the top when you’re done, because this will make it crisp up nicely, brown prettily and taste lovely. Sprinkle some pine nuts over the top.
Bake the pie for 30 minutes, by which time you should smell it from several rooms away. You can serve it with whatever you like – salad, potatoes, a big glass of wine.
I’m not claiming that this is a substitute for a proper steak and ale pie with lardy pastry. It’s not. But it’s an awful lot tastier than a low fat ready meal : )
