Broccoli and Leek Pie

Hello and Happy New Year!

Lundulph and I went to visit my parents in Sweden and I've picked up a couple of new recipes.

Tonight I made one of them. Unfortunately I didn't watch my Mum make it and she wasn't too sure of the amounts, so I'm trying it out while I add some ideas from myself. So the amounts are a bit approximate.



Ingredients

Crust

150 g butter
0.5 dl grape seed oil
salt
4 tbsp water
50 g wholemeal flour
250 g plain flour

Filling

300 g broccoli
5 - 6 leeks (about 300 g)
4 slices of ham
2 tbsp grape seed oil
1 tbsp water
salt
black pepper
1 dl parsley

Creamy bit

4 large eggs
2 dl creme fraiche
3 dl semi-skimmed milk
salt

Method

1. Melt the butter and oil for the crust. This is essential to speed things up and make a nice smooth dough.
2. Mix up all the ingredients into a soft dough.
3. Spread it in a deep baking tray, 35 x 30 x 3 cm and pre-bake it for 10 minutes on gas mark 6 or 200 degrees C. Then take out and leave to one side. My pie crust cracked in a few places, but I don't think that matters much.
   
4. Wash and cut the broccoli and leeks into small pieces. Wash and chop the parsley coarsely.
5. Fry the broccoli, leeks and parsley in the oil. Add the seasoning too. Fry until the water has evaporated, but keep stirring every now and then, so things don't burn.
6. Cut the ham into small pieces and once the broccoli and leeks are done, take off the heat and mix in the ham.
   
7. In a bowl, whisk together the eggs, creme fraiche, milk and salt into a smooth creamy mix.
8. Now spread the broccoli, leek and ham mix evenly over the pie crust, then pour the creamy mixture on top, making sure the pie is evenly covered.
9. Bake on gas mark 5 (or 200 degrees C if using an electrical oven) until the pie is golden brown.

There are two important aspects to the pie crust - first, the melted butter and oil makes it very easy to make the dough, rubbing solid butter into the flour takes a lot more effort. Second, the 10 minute pre-baking ensures that the pie crust will remain crunchy. If the fillings are done on top of the raw dough, it'll go soggy, possibly not even bake properly.

Adding the ham was my idea and it worked quite nicely. The wholemeal flour is optional and can be swapped for plain flour. My Mum didn't give any indication as to how much flour is needed. I thought 6 dl in total seemed OK, but I wasn't able to roll the dough. This could be due to using a bit of wholemeal or too much or too little flour on the whole. It was easy enough to just press into the baking tray.

Also tomato slices can be added on top and grated cheese.

Update 20th January 2007: My Mum has very kindly taken the time to measure the amounts for the pie crust and I've updated them above. The dough is not supposed to be rolled, but pressed into the baking tin, just as I explain above. Make sure it's thin and to make sure it doesn't crack, prick it with a fork here and there.