Leek and Potato Pie

Everyone likes pies. Well, maybe not everyone, but everyone should and leek and potato pies are a good traditional vegetarian combination.
 

Ingredients:

• 1 onion, finely chopped
• 3 leeks, washed, outer layer removed and thinly sliced
• 3 sticks of celery, thinly sliced
• 1 tbsp sunflower oil
• 4 medium potatoes, washed and chopped into 1cm cubes
• 125ml white wine
• 1 tsp marjoram
• 3 bay leaves
• 400g plain flour
• 4 tbsp sunflower oil
• 200ml cold water

 

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees.
2. Fry the onion, leek and celery in 1 tbsp of sunflower oil for 5 minutes over a medium heat.
3. Add the potatoes, wine, bay leaves and nutmeg and turn the heat down to low.
4. Leave the mixture to simmer for 20 minutes.
5. While simmering you can make the pastry. First mix the flour and sunflower oil together until there's no obvious lumps of oil.
6. Add the water a bit at a time. Mix it well between adding water but stop adding water when the mixture starts to hold it's shape. You want to have the dough slightly sticky as it will dry out as you kneed it.
7. Flour a surface and kneed the dough with the palm of your hand for a couple of minutes. To kneed you should push down on the dough to flatten it a bit, then turn it, flip it over and fold it slightly.
8. Once the dough is a nice texture split it in two and roll each half out flat into a circle.
9. Place one of these circles in a pre-greased dish which can hold about 1.5 litres.
10. Hopefully by now the filling will be done simmering, so place that inside the dish. Pick out the three bay leaves that you added before simmering it.
11. Use the last circle of dough/pastry to form a lid to the pie. It will stick more easily to the pastry already in the dish if you wet the edges of the pastry in the dish with some cold water.
12. Poke a hole in the top of the pie so that air can escape in the oven.
13. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes, or until the pastry starts to crisp up.

 
Serves 3 to 4.