POTATOES - VERSATILE, EASY AND DELICIOUS

If like me you are always feeding hungry teenagers, then potatoes are a godsend. Easy to prepare and they can be used in so many different ways - baked, chipped, boiled, mashed....but sometimes when I look in the fridge there appears to only be a boring mixture of ingredients, so I started to look for a different way to use up potatoes and vegetables at the end of the week and this is one of the recipes I came up with.

Potato pastry pie with leeks and mushrooms

Ingredients

Shortcrust pastry - you need to make your own, so a standard recipe is twice the amount of plain flour to butter/margarine, but with this recipe you substitute half of the flour with mashed potato. So 4 oz flour, 4oz mashed potato and 4oz butter/margarine

Leeks - three good sized
Mushrooms - 6 to 8 oz
Cream cheese or mascarpone - three/four large tablespoons
Seasoning to taste

Method

This is a great recipe for using up mashed potato leftovers, but you can make fresh. DO NOT mash the potatoes with butter or milk if making fresh as the mash will be too soft.

Rub the butter into the flour until it resembles breadcrumbs and then mix in the mashed potato, Mix with your hands (or a wooden spoon) until it forms a ball of pastry dough. If you like you can add some mustard to the mixture at this point, which gives a great flavour when cooked. I found some honey mustard in the cupboard and used a large heaped tablespoonful.

 Leave the dough in the fridge to chill for at least half an hour.

In the meantime, thinly slice the leeks and mushrooms. Fry the leeks gently until soft (about 5 minutes) but not brown and then add the mushrooms for another 3 to 4 minutes.

 Cool slightly and then stir in the cream cheese (a flavoured version if you like) or mascarpone.

Roll out the chilled dough into an approximate circle and place on a baking tray. Pinch the sides to make a saucer shape and add the filling. If you prefer to use a flan dish that makes it slightly easier, but there is no real need. If you like the base really crispy you can bake blind before adding the filling for about 10 minutes.

Bake in a hot oven - 180° C - for about 20 minutes until the top is browned and the potato case crispy.

I like to eat this with a green salad and a sharp tasting chutney ( I had some homemade apple chutney that was just right), but it is also a good accompaniment for sausages or chops.

This post is an entry for #FluffyMarisPiper Linky Challenge sponsored by Potato Council. Learn more at bit.ly/18rWnaB.