Recipes from Le Tasting Room's kitchen - cheesey leek & bean pie

Flaky pastry with a rich, cheesey, bean, leek and thyme filling. Comfort food for a winter’s day.

This is my adaptation of a recipe from The Boy Who Bakes although when I say adaptation, I didn’t actually see a recipe I just spotted a video of him making it and thought ‘I can do that’. So here is my version.

Let’s start with the pastry. The easiest thing would be to go and buy some good quality puff pastry (because life’s generally too short to be making it yourself unless you have loads of time on your hands and the inclination).

I decided to make a cheat’s puff pastry so if you feel inclined then have a go at this, if not, off to the shops you go. I used a Gordan Ramsay recipe that takes just a few minutes. The result doesn’t give you quite as much rise as you’d find in a ‘real’ puff pastry but it is good and VERY buttery.

You’ll need two rounds of pastry if you buy it from the shops.

To make 700g of pastry you’ll need: (which would be enough for 2 of these pies, freeze the other half)

250g strong plain flour

half a teaspoon of salt

250g butter at room temperature (but not soft)

about 150ml cold water

Method:

Sift the flour and salt into a large bowl, then cut the butter into little dice and mix into the flour gently.

Don’t rub the fat into the flour. Use a wooden spoon to just mix it in with the flour.

Add enough cold water to bring it together with your spoon. It’s a big lumpy dough but as soon as you can bring it together with your hands, form a pattie, wrap it in film and then pop it in the fridge for half an hour.

Bring it back out the fridge, flour your work surface and knead your dough gently until smooth and then form a rectangle. Roll it out away from you gently until it’s roughly 15 x 50cm. Try and keep it straight.

Fold the dough in three. Bring the top half down to the middle, the bottom half over the top, give the dough a quarter turn to the left and roll out again to three times the length.

Fold it like you did before and put in the fridge to rest for at least half an hour. Cut in half and freeze half for another time.

Preheat your oven to 190C, 170C Fan, 375 F

The filling:

3 large leeks trimmed and cut into rings

25g butter and a tablespoon of olive oil

a couple of cloves of garlic finely chopped

a teaspoon of picked thyme leaves (or half a teaspoon of dried thyme)

a tablespoon of Dijon mustard

A tin of cooked white beans (I used canellini beans but it had butter beans in the original) around 400g drained weight.

300g or so of strong melty cheese (cheddar, comté, gruyère I used cheddar)

salt and pepper

a beaten egg for painting the top prior to baking

Stirring the beans, leeks and thyme until thick

Method:

Melt your butter and oil and gently sweat the leeks with the thyme until soft, add the garlic and then tip in the beans. Season with salt and plenty of ground black pepper and add the mustard. Continue cooking until you have a thick mixture (no excess liquid). Put aside and allow it to cool completely.

Bring your pastry out of the fridge and divide in two. Form a round out of one half and roll into a circle.

Spread the bean, leek mixture leaving an edge.

Place a thick layer of cheese evenly over the top

Place a thick layer of sliced cheese on top of the beans. Something that melts well like Cheddar.

Roll out the second half of your pastry, dampen the edges of the pastry edges and pop the lid on top sealing the edges tightly.

Make a pretty pattern on the top using a knife, brush with beaten egg and then pop in the oven until golden. Mine took around 35 minutes or so.

Draw a pattern on the top of the pastry with your knife, make a small hole in the centre, brush with beaten egg and pop in the oven! (Excuse the Genesis in the background lol)

Remove from the oven and allow to cool a little before serving with a dressed green salad and some new potatoes for a more substantial lunch.