Saag Aloo pie

Photographer: Kate
Serves 6

Becky works alongside me as one of our cooking product evaluators and she never fails to come up with new and inventive ways to test our cooking products. Her passion for cooking equates to a lot of delicious ‘engineer feed’ coming out of the lab so we asked her to whip up a favourite for Our Kitchen.  I was lucky enough to have this delicious pie for lunch today and because Becky and I couldn’t stop at one slice and proceeded to share a second, we have happily reduced the number of servings from 8 to 6.  If you have a crowd to feed don’t take the risk, just make a second pie to avoid disappointment.  Enjoy this!  It’s a goodie! -Kate

After a Greek style spinach pie went down a storm with the ladies in the office during our weekly morning tea, I ran with the spinach theme & selfishly adapted it to be filled with one of my top 5 Indian dishes Saag Aloo.

Using frozen spinach is a really cheap alternative to buying multiple packets of fresh spinach. But if you do happen to have an abundance of fresh spinach at your disposal, just wilt it in a large pan & squeeze out all the excess moisture. You’ll need to end up with about 300g of wilted dry spinach.  When it comes to serving the pie adding a dollop of minted yoghurt and and equal measure of some kind of sweet Indian chutney such as tamarind  and date or green mango takes this dish to the next level.

INGREDIENTS

Pie
300g frozen whole spinach leaves
2 tbsp butter (or ghee if you have it)
1 large onion, peeled & finely sliced
Thumb size piece ginger, peeled & finely grated
2 cloves garlic, peeled & finely sliced
Optional: 6 curry leaves
1 potato (about 150g), peeled & coarsely grated
¼ tsp dried chilli flakes (or 1 fresh green chilli, halved lengthways & finely sliced)
¼ tsp turmeric
½ tsp black mustard seeds
1 tsp garam masala
½ tsp salt, plus a little extra to sprinkle on top
Squeeze lemon juice
2 eggs, beaten
½ cup breadcrumbs
Small bunch fresh coriander, leaves & stalks roughly chopped
2 sheets ready rolled puff pastry (approx. 25cm x 25cm)
A little milk for brushing pastry

Carrot Salad
1 tbsp olive oil
1 tsp black mustard seeds
10 curry leaves
Optional: 2 whole dried chillies
4 large carrots, peeled & coarsely grated
Small bunch fresh coriander, leaves picked & stalks finely chopped
2 heaped tbsp desiccated coconut
2 tbsp lemon juice
Salt to taste

METHOD

Pie
1. Defrost spinach on low power in microwave. Take handfuls & squeeze gently to remove all excess moisture & set aside
2. Place a shelf in the centre position of your oven & put an empty baking sheet or pizza stone on there to heat up (this will help the base of your slice crisp up). Preheat oven to 220°C Bake/200°C Fan Bake
3. Heat butter (or ghee) in large frying pan over a medium heat. Cook onion stirring occasionally until softened
4. Add potato, chilli flakes, ginger, garlic, spices & curry leaves if you’re using them. Stir continuously for a couple of minutes until the mustard seeds begin to splatter. Remove pan from the heat
5. Roughly chop the spinach. Add to the pan along with the coriander, breadcrumbs, egg, lemon juice & salt, stirring to combine
6. Take one pastry sheet & place on a sheet of baking paper. Pile the filling on evenly, leaving about a 2cm gap around each edge
7. Brush the edges with water & place the remaining pastry on top. Use a fork to seal the edges
8. Brush the top with milk & sprinkle over a little salt. Prick holes in the top of the pastry with a fork to allow any steam to escape during cooking
9. Bake on the preheated baking sheet or stone for about 25 minutes, until pastry is risen & golden

Tips
This is perfect for making ahead, just cover tightly with glad wrap before you brush the top with milk & store in fridge for a up to a day before you need to bake it. Or, freeze, just make sure it is thoroughly defrosted before baking.
Bunches of fresh curry leaves are often way too big to use all at once, but they keep really well in the freezer. Store the leaves in a box so they don’t get crushed

Carrot Salad
1. Heat oil in a small pan over a medium heat, add mustard seeds. As the seeds begin to splatter, add curry leaves & break dried chillies into pan. Stir, remove from heat & set aside
2. In a bowl, combine the carrot, coriander, coconut, lemon juice, spiced oil mixture & salt. Stir gently to combine. Taste & add more salt & lemon if needed

ABOUT

This Blog Is Born Of The Passion Of A Group Of Friends Here At Fisher & Paykel. Ardent Lovers Of Food And Cooking, We Want To Inspire Our Readers, Share Our Recipes And Impart Knowledge.

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