Vegetable Samosa Pie
Its smile haunts my dreams.
Ingredients:
Vegetables and stuff
Puff pastry x3
A rolling pin, selectively applied
Your boyfriend’s potato masher (hey-oh)
Fennel
Less spice than the recipe calls for
Instructions:
1. Decide to make a fancy savory pie like they kept making in that season of the Great British Bake-Off that Rahul was in.
2. Check the Great British Bake-Off website in case they have a recipe there, and IMMEDIATELY GET THE WINNERS OF THE LAST TWO SEASONS SPOILED BECAUSE THEY PUT IT RIGHT THERE ON THE PAGE. Do not find a recipe.
3. Graciously refrain from spoiling Bake-Off for your boyfriend and just Google curry pies, as you should have done in the first place. Only find recipes that have no bottom crust (how does that count as a pie?) until you find a vegetable samosa pie recipe that is exactly what you wanted with the added allure of puff pastry, the lovechild of butter and sin.
4. Make substitutions based on what’s already in your cabinet, what the local Kroger carries, and a realistic estimation of how much spice you and your boyfriend can handle.
Suggestions:
i. garam masala for curry leaves, as recommended in the recipe,
ii. ground ginger for ginger because can you really use the rest of the ginger root before it starts to look weird, and
iii. a little cayenne pepper instead of all that chili powder because you’re white.
PSA: Do Not Skip The Fennel. I don’t care if you have to buy a whole new spice. Never skip the fennel.
5. At this point, if you’re a little baby who wants to make a good pie, skip to step 12. If you believe in grit, sweat, and working for your dinner, continue to step 6.
6. Make pie filling. As per your usual method, resign yourself to mustard seeds jumping out of the pot and trying to burn you. Weather your boyfriend’s incredulity as he puts the lid on the pot.
The onions really calm the seeds down.
7. Reread the step about draping the puff pastry sheet in the pie dish several times because the pastry sheet isn’t . . . big enough. There are a lot of instructions about folding in the corners, so maybe that fixes it? (It doesn’t.) Realize after the filling is in that maybe you should have rolled the pastry out a bit? But the recipe doesn’t say to roll it out.
So, yeah.
It’s fine.
8. You’re sure this is wrong, but bake the pie anyway.
9. As the pie bakes, remember that you definitely rolled out the puff pastry when you made beef wellington and you probably should have done that. It will not matter because you are at your boyfriend’s place, so you do not have access to the rolling pin (though you do have the dutch oven, the potato masher, and the bigger pie dish to work with).
10. After a whole hour of oven time, produce a pie that is perfect on top and completely uncooked on the bottom. Alternate with your boyfriend saying “This is raw” and “It’s inedible” in imitation of Paul Hollywood in Bake-Off. Remove the uncooked dough so that you’re left with a pie with no bottom crust, coming full circle in your baking journey.
You know it still looks good.
11. Since you now have half a cauliflower, an open can of tomato paste, and your pride to win back, make the pie again next week. Ensure that you have access to your dead great-grandmother’s rolling pin.
12. Your great-grandmother had few possessions and many, many descendants. Yet you, a great-grandchild and not even a Firstborn, won her rolling pin like quest loot from your aunt after your uncle taught you how to make dal. You are not sure if your other cousins are aware of this.
13. Channeling the ancestors, roll out the puff pastry.
14. Make a pie. Make a damn good pie. Use your dinky pie tin instead of your boyfriend’s nice one and end up with a lot of leftover filling. Buy more puff pastry to make it into mini pies. Stain your new muffin tins curry-yellow making mini pies.
See, it started out funny.
It did not stay funny.
We still won in the end.
It was worth it.
15. Eat the pie while watching the Great British Bake-Off. Watch your language when you speculate about which contestants will make it to the final. Consider faking concern for the winner’s chances in order to preserve your boyfriend’s innocence.
16. Make it again if you want. There’s no shortage of puff pastry. Based on how packed it is in the Tom Thumb freezer, you might be the only one buying it. Never settle for regular pie crust again. You literally don’t have to.
