Vegetable Pie with asparagus and Tenderstem broccoli

📝 What you need

Ingredients

• Baby new potatoes (any waxy potato - Charlotte, Jersey Royal, Maris Peer, etc)
• Tenderstem broccoli (or ordinary broccoli)
• Asparagus
• Frozen peas
• Leek
• Curly kale (or baby spinach)
• Spring onions
• Lemon
• Fresh parsley (and/or a few leaves fresh mint if you wish)
• Dairy-free butter
• Dairy-free cream
• Dairy-free milk
• Plain flour
• Vegetable stock (check it is vegan)
• Mustard
• Ready-rolled puff pastry (check it is vegan)
• Soy sauce (for the glaze - optional)

Equipment

You don't need anything complex to make this pie - a saucepan, a frying pan, a pie dish and an oven.

The pie dish I used here is 18cm round, similar to this one from Mason Cash. But anything of a similar size will be fine. I often use enamel pie dishes like these as they look so pretty and conduct heat really well too.

A good pastry brush is also handy for getting an even glaze - this one from OXO good grips is excellent.

👩🏽‍🍳 Top Tip for a perfect vegan pastry glaze

Getting a gorgeously crisp and golden crust on pastry can feel like a bit of a challenge for vegans, as traditional cookbooks will tell you that only an egg wash will do.

Plant milk on its own just doesn't quite get that deep, golden sheen and I've tried quite a few variations of what to add to it, (and eaten a lot of pies and pasties on your behalf - you can thank me later).

For savoury pies like this, soy sauce absolutely tops the list - a few drops added to plant milk adds that lovely deep colour and also a savoury flavour too. It is every bit as good - better in fact - than using an egg wash.

For sweet pies and pastries, I simply add a little icing sugar to the plant milk. It caramelises as it cooks, creating a rich colour and adding a little crust of sweetness to the top of your bakes. Delicious.

If you find your pie crust is colouring just a bit too quickly, you can simply cover it with a piece of kitchen foil for the remaining cooking time to make sure it doesn't burn.

❄️ Freezing

This pie freezes really well, I would just warn that the lovely green colour of the vegetables does fade a bit in freezing. So, if you're making your pie specially to freeze, under-cook the asparagus, peas and broccoli. They just need a minute or two in the water.

You can then make up and even glaze the pie, but freeze it before cooking. Puff pastry that has been cooked is soggy and disappointing when frozen and defrosted but totally unaffected if frozen raw.

I sometimes make up a batch of these pies to freeze in individual ramekins or pie dishes - what a lovely treat to discover in the freezer when you're not in the mood to cook from scratch.

🔪 What else can I make with asparagus

Whilst the short asparagus season is here we need to make the most of it! How about trying:

• Mandy's Roasted Tomato & Asparagus Pasta from Cook Veggielicious
• Helen's Roasted Asparagus from Family Friends Food
• My Herby Giant Cous Cous with Asparagus and Lemon from The Veg Space