Ham, leek & mushroom filo pie

     Dinner this evening was a homemade pie. I had some filo pastry in the freezer so I decided to use that instead of potatoes to top the pie. The sauce was made with my usual shortcut white sauce. Look for my 'No-fail, Low-fat White Sauce' recipe
     Filo pastry is a good alternative to shortcrust or puff pastry, if you are concerned with the fat content in your food. It is also versatile in the sense that it can be used for sweet or savoury dishes such as apple strudel, baked chocolate parcels, spring rolls and so on. So if you like filo pastry, be assured that you can store it in the freezer, as long as the sheets of pastry are separated so that you can remove what you need from the freezer. To use frozen filo, simply thaw the frozen pastry in your refrigerator for a few hours.
      I'm not a big fan of filo because it can be so brittle and, hence, tedious to work with. It's good on a pie when you don't need it to look pretty. But for things like samosas, torn filo pastry can be a pain to work with.

My pie bubbled over while baking

Ham, Leek & Mushroom filo pie

makes one 9-inch pie OR 2 smaller individual pies

1 tsp vegetable oil

400g cooked chopped ham

1 cup sliced mushrooms (or more)

250g leeks, sliced thinly

2/3 cup grated carrot, optional

(just to add more nutrition)

1 quantity of my 'No-fail, Low-fat White Sauce'

1/2 tsp dried thyme

salt & pepper

4 or 5 sheets filo pastry

1 TBSP butter/margarine, melted

1. Preheat oven to 180°C. Prepare white sauce.

2.  Heat the oil in a non-stick pan.

3. When oil is hot, add the leeks and mushrooms and sauté till the mushrooms are browned.

4. Add the carrot and ham to the pan and sauté for another 2 minutes.

5. Stir the white sauce and thyme into the pan of sautéed ham & vegetables. 

6. Bring the pan to a simmer then turn off the heat. 

7. Check seasonings, add salt and pepper if necessary. I usually use a lot of pepper.

8. Pour the pie filling into your pie dish/dishes. 

9. Get your melted butter ready and lay one layer of filo pastry on the pie filling. You can tear or scrunch the pastry up to make it fit the pie dish.

10. Using a pastry brush, brush butter on the pastry.

11. Repeat the pastry and butter layers until all your pastry is used up.

12. Bake in the preheated oven for 20 to 25 minutes or until the pastry is golden brown.

13. Leave to sit for 10 minutes (just so that the pie isn't too hot) then serve!

Voila!

I made 2 individual pies because I like having a WHOLE pie

     Lately, I've been making individual pies instead of one bigger pie.  I use a small oven-safe dish (about 20cm diameter) for myself and a slightly bigger Pyrex dish for my husband. I like having my own pie to eat at my own pace. Enjoy your pie!!

No-fail low-fat white sauce

      White sauce....also known as béchamel sauce. It is a versatile sauce that every cook should know because it can be used in a multitude of recipes. It can be used for lasagnes, pastas, pies and for mac & cheese. Normally, you make roux using butter and flour to act as a thickener for the scalded milk. The roux should be equal proportions of plain flour and butter by weight. Normally you would melt the butter in a pan without letting it brown then mix in the flour till you get a paste. Then you would whisk milk into the flour paste.
      I used to be alright at making a white sauce, until I moved to the Netherlands. For some bizarre reason, I could never get a traditional white sauce right again. It always turned out lumpy, runny or just plain gross. Maybe it's the flour here. Maybe I never used the right amount of butter. Maybe it was just me. I got tired of trying. Then I discovered a different way to make a white sauce which, although thinner on flavour, is a lot quicker and never fails me.
   
      This method uses no butter at all and cornflour. It is lower in fat than a traditional béchamel sauce recipe (and maybe even gluten free)! No butter needed!
       This sauce can be used for lasagnes, mac & cheese, as a base for a lovely mushroom sauce, as a savoury pie filling etc....

Easy white sauce

makes a little less than 2 cups of sauce

2 cups semi-skimmed milk

1 bay leaf

1/8 stock cube

1 heaped TBSP cornflour

salt & pepper

1. Put the milk into a saucepan. 

2. Take out 2 tablespoons of the milk and put in a small bowl/ramekin.

3. Add the bay leaf to the milk in the saucepan and heat over a low flame.

4. Mix the cornflour into the remaining milk in the small bowl and mix to form a thin paste.

5. When the milk in the saucepan is hot, add the stock cube and stir to dissolve. 

6. Just when the milk starts to boil, remove the bay leaf and pour in the cornflour mixture.

7. Stir gently. Soon the sauce should start to bubble up and thicken. Reduce the heat and simmer the sauce for 1 minute. 

*If the sauce is too thin for your liking, dissolve another 1/2 TBSP cornflour in 1/2 TBSP of room-temperature water and stir into the sauce. Let the sauce simmer for 1 minute.

9. Add salt/pepper and that's it! Done!

Cheese sauce

1 quantity white sauce

1/2 to 1 cup grated cheese

a little mustard powder (optional)

1. Simply stir the grated cheese and mustard powder into the sauce while it is simmering for the last 1 minute.

*Use more or less cheese, if that's what you like.