Vegetarian: Luke's pie-izza (Vegetarian)

Member Name: edinburgher

Product:	Vegetarian
Date:	08/01/09 (162 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Tasty vegetarian light meal or hearty snack

Disadvantages: None

Simple but delicious, my pie-izza (pronounced pie-eetsa) makes a wholesome light dinner, a great lunch, or a moreish snack. It was created as the result of a happy accident involving spare pastry this Christmas and is essentially a pizza/flatbread made with a large thin crust made from handmade pastry (as opposed to pizza dough).

It's suitable for vegetarians and doesn't require any cooking skill (although you need just a little patience as some aspects are a little time-consuming). Most of the ingredients are 'store cupboard essentials' and can be found in every house.

Will serve two as a main meal with a leafy salad or similar, or four as a snack.

Ingredients (base):

150g Plain flour
70g Butter (1/3 of a standard 250g block)
1 Medium/large egg, beaten
2-3 Tablespoons cold water
Level teaspoon of table salt

Ingredients (topping):

1 Red pepper, de-seeded and cut into eight pieces. I prefer to blacken them with a blowtorch before it goes in the oven, but this is a little OTT for everyday cookery.
1/3 Of a white onion, finely sliced
1/3 Of a large stick of celery, finely sliced
8-10 Good sized mushrooms, very finely sliced. I like to use a mix of chestnut and oyster mushrooms, but whatever you have to hand is fine.
3-4 Cloves of garlic, *very* finely sliced (cut along the clove). With practice and a sharp knife, you should be able to manage 30 slices a clove just fine!
1/4 Packet fresh sage. I advise buying a packet and letting it dry out naturally in a cupboard, using it all up over time. Packaged dried sage isn't as nice, as it's sanitised and doesn't have the odd bits of stalk that add to the flavour/texture. Strip the sage from the stalks using your finger nails, pulling against the direction of the leaves. You should end up with quite a lot of sage, it adds a delicious fragrance. Small pieces of stalk are fine,
this is meant to be a fairly rustic dish.
Extra virgin olive oil
Sea salt
Ground black pepper

Instructions:

1. 30 Minutes before you start preparing, cut your butter into postage stamp sized pieces and leave out to reach room temperature. 10 minutes before you start preparing, start preheating your oven to 200 Degrees Celsius.
2. Sift the flour and table salt.
3. Add the butter and rub the mixture together with your finger tips until it looks like dry breadcrumbs (there shouldn't be any lumps of butter remaining).
4. Add the egg in 3-4 stages, stirring in with a wooden spoon or your hands.
5. The pastry should have a fairly smooth consistency, perhaps just a little sticky. Add the water gradually until your pastry reaches the desired consistency.
6. Get either a baking sheet (best), or your largest baking tray and lightly oil the surface (will stop the pie-izza from sticking).
7. Roll out the pastry on a well-floured surface (a thoroughly cleaned kitchen table is perfect). It should be very thin when you're finished (just a few mm thick). Turn it a few times during rolling so that all the pastry gets flour on it - this will stop it sticking to the table or baking sheet. Roll as flat as you can without it disintegrating - this should look like an irregular
flatbread and rough edges add to the appeal!
8. Move the pastry onto the baking sheet.
9. Cover the pastry in vegetables, starting with the largest pieces. The whole surface should be covered. Press these into the pastry (ideally all vegetables should be touching the pastry).
10. Sprinkle liberally with all the sage.
11. Criss-cross the surface of the pie-izza with a thin drizzle of olive oil (don't overdo it, you're adding more soon!)
12. Sprinkle generously with sea salt and pepper.
13. Bake in the bottom shelf of your oven (as low as you can go) for 10 minutes.
14. Quickly take it out, repeat step (10) again and put it back into the oven for another 10 minutes.
15. Take it out, cut with a large knife and serve. I prefer it cold, so give it half an hour to cool down if preferred.

Will keep fine in the fridge for 2-3 days.

Summary: Enjoyable dish, with vegetables on a pastry base