South African Vegetable Nut Pie

I discovered this delicious pie a few years ago, but recently when I wanted to make it again, I couldn’t find the recipe. I had originally always found it by googling “South Africian Root Vegetable Pie CottageLife website”, but this time, my result showed that the recipe had been removed from the site!

I had to do some serious research, because I didn’t want to lose this great fall staple. I contacted the lady who had originally shared this recipe with me, and luckily she had printed and saved the recipe. I’d like to share it here for a few reasons. First of all, because it’s great. Whenever I prepare this pie, it’s a hit. Secondly, I don’t want to lose this recipe again! So if I share it here, I’ll always know where to find it!

South African Vegetable Nut Pie
By Jane Rodmell

Ingredients

• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 1 cup diced onion
• 1 cup peeled and diced carrot
• 1/2 cup diced celery
• 1 tbsp chopped garlic
• 2 tbsp curry powder
• 1 cup peeled and diced parsnip
• 2 cups peeled and diced sweet potato
• 2 cups peeled and diced rutabaga
• 1 19 oz (540 ml) can diced tomatoes, drained
• 1 can coconut milk
• 1 cup roasted, unsalted cashews

Instructions

1. Heat oil in a large, heavy-bottomed saucepan over medium heat. Add onion, carrot, and celery, and cook for 3–5 minutes. Stir in garlic and curry powder. Cook 1 minute.
2. Add parsnip, sweet potato, rutabaga, tomatoes, and coconut milk. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer, partially covered, for 30 minutes or until vegetables are tender. Stir in cashews and season with salt and pepper. Set aside to cool.
3. Preheat oven to 375°F (190°C). Roll out pastry for a double-crust pie.
4. Line a 9″ (23 cm) pie plate with pastry. Add cooled filling and brush outer edge of pastry with a little water. Place pastry lid over filling, crimp edges to seal, and cut vent holes in the top.
5. Brush top of pie with egg wash. Bake in preheated oven 30–40 minutes or until pastry is golden. Allow pie to rest for 10 minutes before serving.

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

This time, I used this pie shell but feel free to make your own pie crust. Here is a recipe for a crust I’ve used in the past, using buckwheat. It’s from a book called “Vegan Pie in the Sky”.

• 1 1/3 cups All Purpose Flour
• 2/3 cup buckwheat flour
• 1 tbsp sugar
• ½ cup cold nonhydrogenated margarine
• 3-5 tbsp ice water
• 1 tbsp apple cider vinegar

In a large mixing bowl, mix flour and sugar, slowly adding in the margarine. Mix together ice water and the apple cider vinegar in separate bowl, slowly pour the mixture over dough and knead the dough, adding the water/vinegar mixture until it holds together. Divide the dough into 2, press into discs and refrigerate until ready to use.

Helpful Tips

You don’t even need to make the pie crust; you can simply eat this as a stew!

Be careful with the buckwheat crust, because buckwheat flour is very delicate.