Trying to please everyone at Christmas can be hard enough as it is, but finding a way to serve up something for everyone at the dinner table needn’t be difficult thanks to some help from the experts.
Whether it’s Ruth Langsford's easy cranberry sauce recipe that can be made ahead and frozen or Jamie Oliver’s unexpected ingredient for perfectly crisp roasties, taking advantage of their expertise and experience can elevate your Christmas dinner.
And now, with superstar chef Jamie acknowledging people are eating less meat these days, he’s offering up a Veggie Pithivier that he calls "hands down the best thing you can make" for a vegetarian Christmas dish.
Posting to his Instagram, Jamie introduces his 'one and only Veggie Pithivier' as the 'most incredible, edible present that the veggies are going to kiss you for and the meat eaters are going to fight you for'.
Describing what to expect from the dish in the caption, he writes, 'If you're prepping for a veggie Christmas dinner then this is hands down the best thing you can make! I'm talking golden pastry, celeriac, creamy leek, mushroom and blue cheese sauce… come on!
Well, now you have our attention.
In the clip, Jamie is shown preparing the vegetarian pastry, giving it a coating that he compares to a bronze tan and declaring the dish a "French pie that has come truly via Essex."
How to make Jamie's Pithivier Pie
Jamie doesn’t share the recipe in the video, but we found the ingredients and instructions for his Pithivier Pie online. It does require a good few hours and enough time to let something sit overnight.
You’ll need:
- 1 whole celeriac (1kg)
- olive oil
- 2 large leeks
- 1 knob of unsalted butter
- 2 cloves of garlic
- 400g mixed mushrooms
- 75g plain flour
- 2 teaspoons English mustard
- 800ml semi-skimmed milk
- 1 bunch of fresh flat-leaf parsley (30g)
- 120g blue cheese
- 2 x 320g sheets of all-butter puff pastry (cold)
- 1 large free-range egg.
Start by preheating the oven to 200ºC/400ºF/gas 6.
Next, you’ll scrub the celeriac, rub with one tablespoon of olive oil and wrap in tin foil. Let this roast for 1.5 hours, then finely slice and season with sea salt and black pepper.
While this is roasting, halve, wash and finely slice the leeks, then place in a large casserole pan on a medium heat with the butter. Peel, finely slice and add the garlic and mushrooms, then cook for 15 minutes.
Stir in the flour and mustard, followed by the milk, then simmer for five minutes, or until thickened, stirring regularly, and remove from the heat.
Pick, finely chop and stir in the parsley, crumble in the cheese, then season to perfection.
Line a 20cm bowl (8cm deep) with clingfilm. Arrange your now roasted slices of celeriac in and around the bowl until covered. Reserving half the sauce, layer up the rest with the remaining celeriac in the bowl, finishing with celeriac.
Pull over the clingfilm, weigh it down with something heavy, and chill overnight with the remaining sauce.
The next morning after letting this sit, preheat your oven to 180ºC/350ºF/gas 4.
On greaseproof paper, roll both sheets of pastry out to around 30cm x 35cm. Unwrap the filling parcel and place it in the middle of one sheet. Beat the egg and brush around the edge of the pastry and all over the celeriac, then carefully lay the second piece of pastry on top, smoothing around the shape of the filling.
Trim the edges to 2.5cm, crimp to seal, then eggwash all over. Very lightly score the pastry, making a small hole in the top.
Finally, you’ll let it cook at the bottom of the oven for two hours, or until beautifully golden.
You can brush it with more eggwash once or twice to achieve a perfectly golden finish. When done, it serves up beautifully with the warmed-up creamy sauce and seasonal greens.
