Root Vegetable Pie

In honor of my favorite day in March (Pi Day!), je te present: Root Vegetable Pie.

Okay, look: there will be a lovely essay here about how great starch is, someday. At least, there should be. That said: I'm sick, and woozy, and having a hard time waxing verbose about, well, anything. Give a guy a break, no?

I love this pie. It's fast, it's easy, it's freaking delicious. One of these suckers is 6 very solid portions; feed your friends! It's also a great place to seasonalia -- almost any root or tuber will work beautifully in this dish. I make mine tall and hearty; you can scale down if need be.

Choice of Root Veggies

I usually make my pies with at least four different root vegetables, selected from the following list: Carrot or Parsnip, but not both; Rutabaga; Turnip (not my very favorite, but OK); Potato; Beet; Jerusalem Artichoke/Sunchoke; celeriac.

A note about beets: while I love all beets, do remember that purple beets = purple pie. I prefer golden beets for this reason.

A note about potatoes: go with a waxy potato, like a Yukon gold or a German butterball. You want something with a little staying power -- this is a dish about Chunks of Roasty Goodness, and a starchy potato (like a russet) wont give you that. Purple potatoes make for a pretty pie, and wont stain the whole works like a purple beet.

Equipment

A Pie Pan of Some Incarnation: I make my root veggie pie in a spring form pan to allow for a Brian Jaques-esque depth of pie. You might prefer a round cake pan or a standard pie pan. Either way, really.

Ingredients

1 Batch of Pie Crust

4-6ish pounds root veggies

Garlic

Olive Oil

Salt

Pepper

Optional:

Herbs/Spices (I enjoy thyme, sage, rosemary, basil, oregano, and fennel. What I use in a given pie is entirely a product of mood and whim.)

1 large batch of Mushroom Gravy (Highly recommended)

Process

Your veggies will never get anywhere if you don't pre-roast them, so let's get on that. Set your oven on kill (about 425), then assess your veggies. You'll want them all reduced to a pile of roughly-evenly-sized chunks; I leave peeling up to you. (I peel beets, but never potatoes or sunchokes, which keep most of their nutrients in the skin of the root.) As you chop, put everything together in a large mixing bowl. To be honest, I play pretty fast and loose with the volume of my spring form pan; if you're worried, put your chopped veggies into the pan you're going to use and stop when it gets full.

When the chopping is complete, pour a tablespoon or two of olive oil over the pieces, along with a hit of salt, black pepper, and any herbs desired. Toss thoroughly: add more oil if necessary to get every piece lightly covered. Pour all of this into a relatively shallow roasting dish, cover with foil, and toss it in the oven.

Tossed with oil and herbs, ready to roast.

Now would be a great time to make pie crust, don't you think? No need to pre-bake; just have the dough ready to go.

Fill it like this! Click for big!Check your root veggies after 45 minutes; you're looking for mostly-cooked-ness -- not perfectly done, but almost. When that point has been reached, roll out your pie crust. If you're like me, and cooking this in a nice, deep spring form pan, you'll want to separate out about a third of the dough to form the top crust from. Roll the dough out until you have enough surface area to cover the inside of the pan, with extra hanging over. Remember, a spring form is a cylinder; you'll need to coax the dough down into the right-angle where the base meets the side of the pan. This accomplished, dump in the veggies. At this point, I always sprinkle chucks of raw garlic over the whole works -- it'll be roasty and awesome by the time the baking is done. Add the top piece of dough and try, as best you can, to work the edges together to seal the pie. Cut a few steam vents in the middle of the pie; maybe shape them like the Greek letter Pi, in honor of this favorite ratio.

Put the pie in the oven. My huge pies take a half hour or more to bake fully. Maybe go make mushroom gravy (highly recommended). For a snack, take your leftover pie crust, roll it out flat, cover it with butter and brown sugar and cinnamon and ground clove, and bake it in a little pan in the oven with the pie; in 15ish minutes you'll have a lovely treat. Om nom nom. Click for big!

It should look a little bit like this. Click for big!When the top crust is golden, remove the pie from the oven, open the spring form, cut slices, top it with mushroom gravy, and eat it!

Oh man. That's a good pi. Erh, pie. Enjoy!