I LOVE pie. It’s one of the best foods to make and to eat, and is one of the meals that gets me through Autumn and Winter. I like the way a pie is all wrapped up, present-like, and how you need to perform the ceremony of slicing into it to see what really went on in the oven. I’m always keen to try out new pies, and so this Tartiflette Pie was born.
I find making pastry extremely relaxing. If you haven’t done it before, don’t be scared. It takes a few minutes, sure, but if you allow it to be, it’s a really nice job. Feeling the floury-fatty matter between your fingers, shaking the bowl now and then to agitate the larger lumps, bringing the mass together into something heavy, solid and pregnant with possibility.
Wholemeal pastry is much better than wholemeal bread, in my opinion. It’s nutty from the bran in the flour, and I think it works particularly well with cheesy things, having a slight sweetness that counters the richness... sort of how a buckwheat galette works so well with its cheesy filling. So I thought I’d take that classic cold-combatting French dish Tartiflette and wrap it in a cloak of wholemeal pastry.
I made my Tartiflette with Gubbeen, a washed rind cheese from Ireland that is a little bit sweeter and plumper than Reblochon, but you could use either cheese! Reblochon is available in most larger supermarkets and is the classic Tartiflette cheese. If you want to make the pie vegetarian, simply leave out the bacon. No harm done.
Tartiflette Pie
For the pastry
300g wholemeal flour, plus extra to dust
1 tsp salt
200g cold unsalted butter, cubed
1 medium egg
40ml milk
2 tsp white wine vinegar
For the filling
600g potatoes (I used 5 medium spuds), peeled
50g butter
2 medium onions, sliced
200g smoky bacon, cut into cubes (optional)
150ml white wine
200ml double cream
200g Gubbeen or Reblochon
1 egg, to glaze
To make the pastry, put the flour and salt in a mixing bowl. Rub in the cubed butter between your thumbs and fingers until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs. Stir in the egg, milk, and vinegar and cut it into the breadcrumbs using a small knife. Now, using your hands, work the mixture until it comes together to form a dough – it should be soft but not sticky. Flatten and shape the dough into a a disc and wrap in cling film. Set aside in the fridge for at least 1 hour, to rest (up to 4 is good).
Cut your potatoes into 1cm thick discs, then place in a pan of cold, salted water. Bring the pan up to the boil and cook until the potatoes are just tender. Drain in a colander and leave them to steam off and cool.
Melt most of your butter in a frying pan and add the onions. Soften them for about 5 minutes, then add the cubes of bacon and fry together on a medium heat until the onions are golden and both are beginning to brown - around 10 minutes. Pour in the wine to deglaze - it’ll smell great - then when the wine has mostly reduced, stir in the cream off the heat.
Preheat the oven to 200°c. Get the rest of your butter in a frying pan and sauté half the potatoes in the fat to seal them with a slight golden tinge. Cut the Gubbeen or Reblochon in half horizontally, then in half again so that you have four triangles, and keep the rind ON.
Now it’s time to build the pie! Take your pastry out of the fridge and cut it into two, unevenly so you have a bigger and a smaller piece. Take your pie dish and lightly grease it. Then use the bigger pastry piece and roll it out as evenly as you can into a circle that’s large enough to go quite some way up the sides of your tin. I usually roll onto the clingfilm so I can use that to lift it up, it’s quite helpful. Line the dish with it pressing it into any cracks.
Now layer up. Start with a layer of the potatoes which you sautéed. Pour or ladle over half the creamy onion and bacon mixture then place two of your cheese triangles (I use the rind-less triangles first) on opposite sides of the dish so their pointy noses touch. Repeat with the unsautéed potatoes, then the rest of the creamy mix, and the other two triangles, but (stay with me) place these last two triangles on the other sides of the tin from where you put the first triangles. This is so you have cheese coverage throughout the whole pie. So it’s like you’ve made a full cheese circle but on different levels.
Roll out your smaller pastry piece, then top the pie with it, sealing and crimping the edges as you go - be gentle, this is a full pie so it’s easy to make holes. Lightly beat an egg then brush the pie with the egg wash really well. Mark a little cross in the centre for steam to escape. Give it a little tap of encouragement.
Bake in the preheated oven for around 30 minutes, but it could be longer - just until your pastry is a burnished brown and potentially some cheese is bubbling up the sides, if you’re lucky. Allow the pie to sit for a couple of minutes before slicing into it, and serving with a nice green salad, and mustard if you like.
Tip: I use a 23cm cake tin for this to give me maximum depth - it’s quite a deep pie.
Hot Sauces
10 years ago I went through a stage of putting hot sauce on basically everything, bar a roast dinner. If it was savoury, I put hot sauce on top of it. Now I am a bit more sparing, having overcome the need for spice. I’ve learnt that when people said it was boring for every dinner to taste like hot sauce, they were sadly right.
The best hot sauce I have ever tried were the ones my sister Martha brought back from St Kitts for me (thank you!). They were called things like Winnie’s or Jen’s Hot Sauce (see below) and came in little plastic bottles that might normally house soda and were sold in milk crates. The definition of small batch, you might say. Save for actually flying out there, these are sadly unattainable for the old re-ups.
However, there are 3 sauces which I would still struggle not to put on my food, if they were in the vicinity. These are they:
Matouks' Calypso Sauce
From Trinidad, Matouks is made from scotch bonnets that are aged and pickled, and it shows. It’s not easy to come by so I always look for it when the opportunity arises. It goes really well with rice dishes, macaroni cheese, meats and cheese toasties.Tapatío
The most classy of the Mexican hot sauces, in my opinion. I wish I always had a 1L bottle of this. It is a classic and straightforward hot sauce - spicy and strong with a flavour of actual chillis. It’s less thick and less chalky than Valentina, which I like. Cholula can get in the sea IMO.El Yucateco Habanero Green
The hot sauce reviewers of YouTube might think they’re better than this salty, acidic number - but I don’t. This won’t be new to anyone, but it is a classic for a reason. Its tartness means it goes really well with savoury foods like meat and eggs. It is a solid pairing for fried plaintain.
I would be intensely interested to know of any great hot sauces you have tried or recommend - please pen me a note like we are pen pals.
See you next time when we’re going to be getting sweet like chocolate, boys.