Comfort food staple; a perfect flavour packed pie is always a winner. This alternative take on it’s classic dish, with its rich tones and substantial mushroom and lentil filling, stuffed under a layer of warm and crisp puff pastry still fills all the comforty cravings while being a little healthier and lighter.

I thoroughly enjoyed making this because, although it definitely has the slightly heavy and substantial carbs covering it in the topping, the filling is easy to make into something a little bit more virtuous. So you have the comfort food goodness of the pastry layer but you can get some veggies, grains, and protein in the filling. Best of both worlds, right?

I’m sharing the recipe today because even though I cooked it in quite a large pie it was completely gone and inhaled in minutes! So that did tell me a lot on how good it tasted. Considering it was a veggie dish and my family are all dedicated meat eaters, they very much loved it and even thought I had sneaked meat inside it. This isn’t the case though, as you will see in the ingredients below!

Ingredients:

10 shallots, chopped

1 tsp minced garlic

2 tbsp tomato purée

2 cups puy lentils, washed and drained

4 cups chestnut mushrooms, sliced

5 cups fresh baby spinach

Ready-made puff pastry

Oat milk, to glaze

2 tbsp coconut oil

2 tsp dried ground cumin

2 tbsp corn starch or flour

Salt and pepper to taste

Method:

Heat the coconut oil in a pan and add shallots. Cook gently until transparent and golden. Reduce heat, add the garlic and cook for two minutes. Stir in the tomato purée, lentils, and mushrooms. Turn up heat and cook for ten minutes.

Stir in 100ml of warm water. Cover, bring to the boil and simmer for 30-45 minutes.

Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 200C. Simmer for a further 10 minutes, and stir in the corn flour to adjust the consistency until a thick gravy-like pie filling is achieved.

Mix through the baby spinach, and spoon the mixture into the pie dish. Brush the edges with a little oat milk and cover with rolled puff pastry.

Brush the pie top with oat milk and bake for 30 minutes or until pastry top is golden and well risen. Serve & enjoy!