I’m the first to admit that this is a very belated first post of the year here on the Waffle, but bear with me. For a start, there’s a been a lot going on since I last had the time (and space, both physically and mentally) because around the time I last wrote something up, I also started the process of moving house.
So yes, after nine years suddenly most of my kit and props were in boxes all over the place and my home eventually became someone else’s, whilst my partner and I took the giant step of buying a home together…and then wondered where all our collective kitchen kit was, which double ups we should start culling and generally questioning whether there are some items from our respective lives that we’ll never find again.
But the good news, in all the chaos (let’s play starter for ten by both falling foul to particularly nasty bouts of Covid literally the day after we moved in together), we have found ourselves a place with a beautiful kitchen and – once I could taste food properly again – the cooking experiments have for the most part come out very well.
For some reason bread likes rising here, even the most basic store cupboard ingredient bakes have come out flavoursome and comforting and my lovely other half has finally grudgingly admitted that the air fryer he had denounced as crap and given to me months ago actually has its uses.
But there has been a lot of experimentation by necessity. For a start, we’ve both gone from living in towns with supermarkets just a ten minute walk away to living a life so truly rural that mobile phone signal is only achievable in one four-foot-square patch of the garden and you can only get the internet to work in two rooms in the house. (No, of course I wouldn’t change it for the world now we’re here.)
So with the nearest town a few miles away I have had to learn to plan more, be more organised and improvise a lot less, and the freezer and storecupboard are very much our friends. This is one such recipe that came from a combination of all that and making friends with the very good local butchers who we seem to pop in to see at least once a week now.
One of their products that instantly went on the regular purchase list was their Lincolnshire sausages…no, they are not a health food, but they are beautifully made, with fantastic herb seasoning and great quality meat, and as well as this pie recipe they’ve been used in more than one easy, throw-it-in-the-oven casserole since we moved in. I’ve always been a fan of pies with sweet leeks in them, so it wasn’t long before I put two and two together and came up with a bloody great big pie.
Also as we gradually unpack, things we have missed for months lost to boxes have started to re-emerge, like my faithful, trusty little pie bird. Yes, he was just a couple of quid from a chain home store, but I’ve made dozens of pies with this little dude and there’s something about it that has just become a tradition. I don’t care if people think I’m nuts, or if over the years his glaze has eroded and he is now a pie bird with only one eye; if there’s pie, this dude is coming out. So when he finally emerged from yet another of the unending mountain of boxes, it had to be time for pie.
INGREDIENTS
Serves 4 (or three if you know someone with an appetite like my boyfriend)
6 good-quality Lincolnshire sausages
1 x rasher good quality smoked back bacon, diced
400g prepped leeks (white and green leaves, sliced into rounds and rinsed for grit)
200g button chestnut mushrooms (or chopped larger chestnut mushrooms) – roughly chunk up the larger ones but the smaller buttons can be left whole, if using bigger chestnut mushrooms I tend to prepare them quite chunky rather than thinly sliced
1 x pre-rolled pack of puff pastry at room temperature (I’m taking the Jamie Oliver line that making puff pastry is a thing of serious rarity if you’re a busy person, the block stuff would be fine if you want to roll out yourself)
½ litre good quality chicken stock (I use low-sodium)
2 x cloves garlic, diced
2 tsp wholegrain mustard
2 tbsp plain flour
100g salted butter (I initially typed that as 1000g but I think even James Martin would draw a line there!)
1 x free range egg
Maldon sea salt and fresh ground black pepper to season to taste
METHOD
- Get yourself a pie bird (optional) and a 24cm wide round pie dish (this really isn’t optional).
- Put the sausages on a baking tray and cook in a pre-heated oven at 200 degrees fan for roughly half an hour (size and shapes are going to vary) or until clearly just nicely cooked. Put aside and allow to cool.
- Add the diced bacon to the pan and start to render down over a medium heat (add a splash of olive oil to avoid sticking).
- Prep the leeks, make sure all that grit is washed out, add them to a generously sized frying pan with a little Maldon sea salt (just a little bit at this stage to encourage the moisture out – you’ll season properly later), a quick grind of black pepper and the minced garlic. Fry on a medium low heat in olive oil and the butter (leeks love the stuff!), stirring every few minutes until just starting to soften and smell sweet – probably about twenty minutes on a medium heat but again this will vary according to size and age etc of the leeks. Add a small splash of the stock if things start to stick.
- In between stirs, prep the mushrooms; wipe away any dirt with a damp tea towel or sheet of kitchen towel, discard the most dry stalks.
- Unfurl the puff pastry – I find the shop bought rolls aren’t always wide enough for a round pie dish this size so just roll out a little more thinly width-wise. Trim with a centimetre or so spare around the circumference of the dish edge so you can crimp later. Save trimmings for either the freezer for future projects or any decoration you want to do now. Cut around the edge of the upturned pie dish to measure out with a centimetre to spare all around so you have enough pastry to crimp the edge.
- Slice the sausages into 1cm thick slices on an angle.
- When the leeks are ready, sprinkle with the flour and cook out for a few minutes.
- Add the chicken stock and wholegrain mustard and stir until thickened – if it remains a little watery, you can always quicken this with some cornflour mixed in cold water.
- Once the sauce has thickened, taste for seasoning. Remember that the herbs in good quality Lincolnshire sausages will impart their own flavour, so don’t worry if the sauce tastes like it needs more herbs at this stage, just focus on the salt and pepper.
- When you’re happy with the consistency (remember the mushrooms will let out some moisture but if it has come up a little short on the gravy, add a splash of water if you think it needs it), add the chopped sausages and the mushrooms and stir the mix to combine. Cook together for about five minutes to start the mushrooms cooking through. Transfer to the pie dish.
- Level out the contents of the dish and lay the pastry over the top. Crimp the edge however you like (as you can tell, I tend to go for a rustic look). If adding pastry decorations, do this now, make sure you leave a few knife slices into the pastry to let the stream escape (or, of course, a faithful pie bird – he does actually serve a purpose), and brush all over with the egg wash.
- Cook at 210 degrees fan for 30 minutes approx. or until the pastry is golden and puffy and the mixture is bubbling.
Great served with mash, steamed veg or chips, this one was a winner from the first month or so of living in the new house here, so it’s definitely going to be on the regular repeat list with us and it has autumn / winter comfort food written all over it, even if the recipe was devised in spring. The key really is good quality Lincolnshire sausages; taking the time to find butchers who produce really great ones means the herbs from the slices pack the sauce out with herby flavour which match beautifully with pretty much any mushrooms but, in my opinion, particularly with chestnut varieties. Coupled with a little bite from some wholegrain mustard and black pepper, it’s a great combination.
So I’m back on the Waffle horse and I’m very pleased with this recipe as the first one from our new home, it’s a fittingly wholesome and hearty recipe that’s ideal to come home to and I hope you enjoy it as much as we have.
The Food Waffle 