Pie or Tart?

Sweet Pepper and Chestnut Flan

If this was made with eggs and cream it would be called a quiche. If it were flatter, it would be a tart and if it had a lid it would be a pie. I don't know what to call it.

Makes two 10cm thingymajigs, each serving one.

Pastry:
125g plain flour
10-12g nutritional yeast
30g well chilled vegan margarine
½ tsp paprika
1 tsp mixed peppercorns, crushed.
50ml cold water

My mix of peppercorns is white, black, pink and green with coriander seed. Put all the ingredients except the water into a food processor and pulse a few times to combine (or rub fat in by hand). Then add just enough chilled water to bring the dough together, so don't put it all in at once but add a dribble at a time until you're happy with it. Gather up the pastry into a ball and set aside to rest in the fridge until you need it.

Filling:

200g cooked sweet chestnuts
2 flame grilled red peppers with skins removed
1 clove garlic, well crushed
1 tsp salt
lemon juice to taste

My chestnuts were the remainder of a tin that I had opened for an unsuccessful attempt at sausages and I'm a Lidl shopper so I have a jar of their wonderful pickled roast red peppers. This saved a lot of time with the preparation, but you can always cook some fresh or dried chestnuts and roast your peppers yourself, it is worth it.

Put all the ingredients except the lemon juice into the processor and process until it reaches a nice consistency. No need to eradicate every last nugget of chestnut, just make it not too gribbly. Taste and adjust seasoning with the lemon juice. You may not need any if you've taken the short cut of ready skinned peppers.

At this point the blade in my, admittedly 25 years old, food processor detached from its spindle so I had to do several batches in my mini-hachoir more usually occupied in making a few breadcrumbs or a sprinkle of chopped nuts. Still, that may not happen to you.

Roll the pastry out between two sheets of parchment paper (or cling film if desperate) and line two 10cm flan rings on a lightly greased and floured baking tray. There are no flan rings of that size in the house so I improvised a ring from aluminium foil origami and baked the second portion as flat crackers.

Prick the pastry all over with a fork so that it won't bubble up and bake blind for 20 minutes in a hottish oven, around 200C. Then fill the cases with the mixture and return to the oven for another 15 minutes. Serve warm or cool.

The spare filling was great eaten as spread/dip with the 'crackers' and the thingymajig is a "real" meal.