After doing what the French do so well and taking a long holiday (well a long blog holiday). It’s the back to school/work or as the French call it the ‘rentrée‘ (transl. return) which means I’ve been doing some serious cookstorming, testing out recipes for new classes, dinners and culinary events.

After doing some pie research yesterday (thanks for the tweets) I decided to get down to some pie action.  A while ago I had read an uk food trend report that said pies are hot stuff with brands like Pieminster and Delisanté making stylish hip pies for Selfridges, Waitrose and other big retailers. Pies have always been a staple dish in the English diet and even more so in the American’s with songs,  films and places like this. The French are yet to catch on (they prefer their tartes) although I know one place in Paris which makes a mean fruit pie (I sometimes make some there too)

I hit the market in the morning. My favourite fruit & veg guy (he’s got great produce and is also cute) was back from holiday which I was super happy about. He had a lovely pumpkin which I just had to have a piece of, along with some super sweet tiny mirabelle plums which by the time I got home had all somehow disappeared. Way too easy to pop into your mouth!

After baking 4 different cakes for my birthday on Friday I definetly needed to balance things out with something savoury. So a sweet pumpkin pie (if you’ve got a good recipe, send it my way!) was not gonna happen. Plus I’m not a big fan of sweet pumpkin pie.

I like roasting pumpkin and eating hot with olive oil or cold tossed with some baby spinach, pine nuts and a tahini dressing or in a curry. So I decided to roast some potatoes and pumpkin with some curry spices and popping that into a pie. It reminded me a little of the curry puffs my mum used to make. MMMMMmmmmmmm yum!

Spiced Pumpkin Potato Pie

4 small pies

700g diced pumpkin
300g diced potatoes
4 tbsp sunflower oil
1 tbsp ground paprika
2 tbsp ground curry powder (I used a rendang spice mix which has ground lemongrass)
3 pinches of salt
Sesame seeds for garnish
1 egg for eggwash

Preheat the oven 180°c/350°f. Mix together the spices, salt and oil with the potatoes and pumpkin. Put into a roasting tray. Roast for 30-40minutes or until the vegetables are tender. Leave to cool slightly.

Shortcrust pastry

170g flour
100g butter (very cold, cut into cubes)
1 tsp salt
1 egg

For the shortcrust pastry:
1. Sablage
Mix flour and salt add cubed butters. Rub flour mixture and butter together to create a breadcrumb texture. Make sure to work quickly. Add egg. Mix slightly.

2. Frasage
Turn out mixture onto clean surface (preferably a cool marble surface). Using the palm of your hand. Push a small amount of the mixture about 20cm along the surface of the table. Do this with all the dough. Repeat once or twice until the mixture has come together.

Chill dough for 30mins. Preheat oven 180°c/350°f.

Roll out to knife edge thickness and line already greased and floured tins. Use a round cookie cutter to cut out the dough for the tins. Prick the base and then fill with potato and pumpkin. Eggwash the edge of the pastry and cut a second (smaller round) for the top. Make sure to make a small hole in the top for the steam. Eggwash the top and sprinkle with sesame seeds. Bake for 30 minutes or until the top and bottom of pie is golden brown. Eat warm or cold.