I love a pie in winter. Flakey pastry encasing a delicious savoury filling – it’s my favourite. And yep I’m much more into a savoury pie than a sweet one and I totally get that a savoury pumpkin pie problem sets alarm bells off for any North American followers. But in this part of the world pumpkin is a savoury thing, thus my savoury pumpkin pie.

I’m also a little obsessed with sundried tomato at the moment. They’re full of flavour and the perfect thing to use when fresh tomatoes are no longer in season. I’ve also roasted the pumpkin with garlic and sage so it’s super flavoursome. There’s no gravy as the pumpkin itself is little wetter than other veggies so when combined with the oily sundried tomato it doesn’t need gravy.

The addition of crispy pieces of salty golden haloumi is a dream. That said you could totally make it vegan by replacing this with a marinated vegan cheese. Think 1/4 tsp of vegan feta dotted through the mixture.

I went ahead and made my own pastry because working from home life is still happening (using this recipe). But this isn’t necessary. You can use store bought puff pastry and the pie will take way less time, making your own pastry adds a couple of hours. You can also get store bought vegan pastry, or using the vegetable shortening instead of butter to make rough puff and end up with a vegan offering. As long as you have crispy flaky pastry encassing soft, sticky pumpkin then you’ve got a delicious family pie on your hands. Serve with warm green beans or a simple salad.

It’s the perfect vegetarian dinner party centre piece too. So yum.

Serves 4-6

Ingredients

1kg pumpkin, skin and seeds removed and chopped into 2cm chunks

1 Tbs extra vrigin olive oil

3 cloves garlic

1/3 cup shredded fresh sage

1/2 cup sundried tomatoes, roughly chopped

100g haloumi, sliced

1/3 cup roughly chopped flat leaf parsley

4 sheets puff pastry or 2/3 of the quantity of homemade pastry in this recipe.

Directions

Preheat oven to 180C fan forced (200C non fan forced).

Toss the pumpkin in the olive oil and spread in a baking tray in a single layer. Season with salt and pepper. Roast for 30 minutes. Add the shredded sage and garlic and roast for another 30 minutes, or until the garlic and pumpkin are both soft and the pumpkin has started to get some colour. Adding the garlic and sage later stops them from burning while the pumpkin becomes completely cooked.

Squeeze the garlic from its skin and mix with the parsley and sundried tomato.

Place a non stick pan on medium high heat and add the haloumi once hot. Pan fry the haloumi for 1 minute on either side and remove from the heat. Roughly chop and mix with the pumpkin and sundried tomato mix. Mash lightly with the back of a spoon. You still want whole chunks of pumpkin. Check seasoning and adjust as necessary.

Meanwhile, use a 25cm pie dish to measure a pie lid: place the dish upside down and cut a circle with your knife that is a few mm wider than the dish itself. Set aside, line the dish with the pastry sheets, you may need to press the seams together and trim so that the pastry comes up the sides and  covers the top edge. Fill with the pumpkin mixture and cover with the pie lid.

Press together the edges to close. I did a fold and twist, a little like making an empanada or a dumpling, but you could use a fork.

Prick with a fork and decorate as you please using the pastry off cuts.

Brush with the beaten egg.

Bake for 30-40 minutes or until the pastry is golden and crisp. Allow to sit for a few minutes before cutting and serving.

HH. x