Spiced Butternut Squash Pie

I recently got a nice pie dish as a present so I've been trying to think up exciting vegetarian pie recipes. The filling for this pie is suitable rich and develops a lovely thick gravy around the chunks of squash.
 

Ingredients:

• 1 onion, roughly chopped
• 1 tsp turmeric powder
• 1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
• 2/3 tsp ground fenugreek
• a pinch of salt
• 1 butternut squash, peeled, seeds removed and cut into 1cm pieces
• 300ml water
• 175g plain flour
• 75g sunflower oil
• 50ml water

 

Method:

• Preheat the oven to 170 degrees.
• Place the onion, turmeric, pepper, fenugreek and salt in a small blender and blend until it's a smooth paste.
• Put the smooth paste into a large saucepan which you have a lid for and head over a medium heat for 3 minutes.
• Add the butternut squash pieces and 300ml water and mix well.
• Turn the heat down, place the lid on the mixture and leave to simmer for 30 minutes over a low heat. Stir it every 5 minutes to make sure that the butternut squash isn't burning on the bottom of the pan.
• While that simmers away, put the flour in a large bowl and add the oil.
• Mix well with a knife until the oil is absorbed by the flour. Season the mixture with ground black pepper if desired.
• Add the 50ml water to the flour and oil mixture and mix with the knife until all the water is absorbed.
• Use your hands to kneed to dough for a couple of minutes.
• Divide the dough in half and roll out one half of it so it's large enough to cover your pie dish. I used a 22cm wide pie dish, but a slightly larger or smaller one should be fine. If you don't have a pie dish then any oven proof dish which can hold about 1.5 litres will do.
• Use a fork to gently dent the pastry in the dish. You just want to leave a few dimples all over the pastry, don't press anywhere near hard enough to go all the way through.
• By now the butternut squash should be cooked, so pour it into the pie dish over the pastry.
• Roll out the other half of pastry so that it will cover the pie dish. Use a pastry brush (or repeated dipping of your finger into a cup of water) to dampen the edge of the pastry that is in the pie dish.
• Place the rolled out pastry on top of the pie dish and press down the edges to seal it.
• Spike a couple of holes in the pastry top to let gas escape.
• Bake in the oven for 30 minutes.
• Leave to stand for 5 minutes before serving to allow the inside time to cool down and solidify a bit.

 
Serves 3.