Recipes/

Savory Pies

Everybody love some pies, so here are what I presume are “west european” style savory pies. Both use pie dough, eggs and some kinds of cheese.

Mushroom pie

Ingredients:

• 1 pie dough
• 1 yoghurt or some liquid cream
• 2 eggs
• 150g of sliced paris mushroom
• 75 grams of emmental or gruyere
• optionally, some dried meat or bacon

Preparation:

1. turn the oven on at 220°C
2. lay the dough in your pie plate
3. cut out any dough that overflow too much, transform it in strings and set it aside.
4. stab the dough in the mold with a fork all over the bottom (more is better).
5. put it in the oven, for 5 to 7 minutes, or about the time it takes to prepare the rest of the pie (if you’ve done it a few times already).
6. pour drained mushrooms in the bowl.
7. break the eggs in the bowl and mix.
8. add the yoghurt and mix.
9. incorporate the cheese.
10. take the pie crust out of the oven.
11. pour the bowl in the pie crust.
12. optionally, you can put some dried meat or bressaola on top of the batter.
13. take the strings of dough you had put aside and lay them on the pie. Depending on how much you have, you can go for a cross, a tic tac toe grid or a dart board pattern (or a smiley).
14. put the pie in the oven, and let it cook for ₂₅ minutes.

##Spinach pie:

Pretty much the same as above, but replace the emmental / gruyere with goat cheese, some crumbled in the bowl and and you can put some on top of the pie instead of the dried meat. If you use frozen spinach with cream already in, you don’t need add the yogurth / cream.

Ingredients:

• 1 pie dough
• 1 yoghurt or some liquid cream
• 2 eggs
• 500g of spinach leaves.
• 75g of goat cheese
• optionally, some dried meat or bacon

Preparation:

1. turn the oven on at 220°C
2. lay the dough in your pie plate
3. cut out any dough that overflow too much, transform it in strings and set it aside.
4. stab the dough in the mold with a fork all over the bottom (more is better).
5. put it in the oven, for 5 to 7 minutes and then take it out.
6. cook the spinach leaves / melt your frozen spinach.
7. dry the spinach (put in a sieve and press as much water out as you can).
8. break the eggs in the bowl.
9. add the yoghurt and mix (unless there is already cream in your spinach, in which case half a yoghurt would probably be enough).
10. add the spinach and mix.
11. cut and crumble the goat cheese.
12. incorporate the cheese.
13. pour the batter in the pie crust.
14. optionally, you can put some dried meat or bressaola on top of the batter (and below any spare dough leftover).
15. take the strings of extra dough you had put aside and lay them on the pie. Depending on how much you have, you can go for different patterns such as a cross, a tic tac toe grid or a smiley.
16. if you have a “bûche” of goat cheese you can cut a few slices for a more tic tac toe effect (or a more smiley effect).
17. put the pie in the oven, and let it cook for ₂₅–30 minutes.

Note: the eggs while create a mostly waterproof film on top, preventing the moisture of the spinach from evaporating. You can either get as much moisture out of the spinach before, or make some cuts in the pie after the eggs have cooked on the surface.

Recipe of the vinaigrette sauce.

Mandatory for a well-made tomato salad.

Required utensils:

• Tea spoon
• soup spoon
• some kind of glass or bowl

Required ingredients:

• Vinegar
• Oil
• Mustard

Optionals:

• Salt
• Pepper

Recipe:

1. Measure 1 soup spoon vinegar into the container
2. Measure 2 soup spoon olive oil into the container
3. Add some mustard to taste ~ ½ tea spoon for each soup spoon of vinegar
4. Stir vigorously so all three ingredients are homogeneously mixed

I prefer to use olive oil and Balsamic vinegar because I find I like the taste, but feel free to explore with your favorite ingredients. The important thing is the ⅓ - ⅔ ratio of vinegar to olive oil, which you can likely adjust depending on how strong you like your sauce.

Tomato Salad Recipes

Here are the tomato salads that I sometimes make.

Tomato & Rice :

1. Cook the rice and allow it to cool down.
2. Cut the tomatoes (in 16 parts) and put them in a bowl.
3. Add olives.
4. Add tuna.
5. When the rice is cool, add it to the salad and mix.
6. Put in the fridge.

Serve cool, and add the vinaigrette before serving.

Tomato & Feta :

1. Cut tomatoes in small bits (1/16nth).
2. Add feta .
3. Add olives.
4. Put in the fridge

Serve cool, and add the vinaigrette before serving.

Chocolate Cake

You need the following.

Ingredients:

• 200g of chocolate¹.
• 125g of butter.
• 150g of sugar.
• 75g of self-rising flour².
• 4 eggs.

Utensils:

• 1 fork or spoon for mixing.
• 1 spoon for putting putting flour and sugar in the measuring cup.
• 1 measuring cup.
• 1 spatula.
• 1 medium bowl to hold the dough. Must withstand micro-wave oven.
• 1 cake mold (at least 25 cm large and 5 centimeters deep).
• optionally: a kitchen scale³.

Preparation:

You can use a little bit more of flour and butter to butter and flour the cake mold so that the cake does not stick to the mold.

Pre heat the oven at 175°C while you are making the dough.

1. If you want to flour and butter the mold, now is a good time to put a little bit of butter in the mold (about a teaspoon).
2. Chop the chocolate in small bit and the butter in medium bits in the bowl.
3. Put that in the microwave on full power for 60–90 seconds.
4. Mix it with the fork so that the dough is homogeneous.
5. Add the sugar progressively, mixing with the fork.
6. Incorporate the eggs, one at a time.
7. Add the flour progressively, making sure everything is well mixed.
8. Now that everything is in the dough, spread the butter in the mold and then sprinkle some flour on the butter coating.
9. Pour the dough in the mold, and put the mold in the oven.
10. Check⁴ the cake status after 27 minutes. It will probably need a couple more minutes.
11. Once it’s cooked, tak it out of the oven and llet it rest at least 10 minutes.
12. Enjoy !