Carrot, onions & sheep milk cheese pie
Ingredients
For the dough
- 100 g small spelt flour or wheat flour by default
- 80 g half wholewheat flour
- 70 g soft butter or olive oil
- 5 cl water
- 1 pinch of salt
For the filling
- 1 large onion yellow or red
- 450 g carrots
- 1 egg
- 50 g fresh sheep's cheese
- 10 cl cream e.g. liquid sour cream or vegan rice or oats cream
- 1/2 tsp nutmeg
- 1/2 tsp cumin seeds
- 1/2 tsp turmeric
- 1/2 tsp thyme
- Salt
- Pepper
- Olive oil
Instructions
Preparation of the dough
- Mix the flour and salt in a bowl.
- Add the soft butter cut into cubes. Mix for a few minutes with your fingertips until you have a semolina-like texture.
- Add the water all at once to bind the dough. Work the dough with your hands (previously floured so that it doesn’t stick too much) until it forms a non-sticky, slightly elastic ball. Add a little water if necessary, or a little flour if necessary.
- Let the dough rest while you prepare the filling.
Preparation of the filling
- Chop the onion into strips. Fry in a drizzle of olive oil in a large frying pan over medium heat for about 8 minutes, stirring occasionally.
- While the onion is cooking, wash and peel the carrots. Grate them coarsely (not too finely).
- Add the carrots to the pan and fry over medium heat for about 10 minutes, stirring constantly. You can add a tablespoon or two of water so that the mixture does not stick to the pan. Then set aside.
- In a bowl, beat the egg with the cream using a whisk or fork.
- Cut the sheep's cheese into small pieces. Add it to the bowl and crumble it with a fork, so that the cheese is diluted with the egg + cream mixture.
- Then add all the spices and mix well.
- Preheat the oven to 180°C.
- Roll out the dough carefully on a sheet of baking paper. It may be crumbly and break: if so, press pieces together with your fingers to make a seam. Place the dough and baking paper in a pie dish. I use a pie dish of about 28 cm in diameter.
- Prick the bottom of the pastry with a fork.
- Spread the carrot + onion mixture over the bottom.
- Pour the mixture over, trying to spread it evenly over the whole pie.
- Bake at 180°C. Check the cooking time after 25 minutes, and adjust the cooking time according to your oven (about 5 to 10 minutes more). The pastry should be cooked and hardened and the mixture should no longer be liquid.
- Once the pastry is cooked, remove the pie from the pan and leave to cool on a wire rack.
Notes
You can customise this pie by adding different ingredients, depending on whether you want to give it a tangy, sweet and sour, or crunchy note...
For example, you could add coarsely crushed walnuts to the mixture.
Another suggestion: give the pie a sweet and sour touch by adding a tablespoon of honey or maple syrup to the mixture, and why not add barberries. You can also use onion jam or onion confit, which will also add a touch of sweetness, instead of fresh onion.
As for the spices, you could also add gomasio or sumac.
It's also possible to use different type of cheese, for instance cheddar, gouda or Mimolette instead of sheep milk cheese.
Finally, you could also make a mash with the carrots instead of grating them. This would give you a result that is closer to a quiche than to a pie. In this case, don't hesitate to double the ingredients of the mixture (eggs + cream + cheese).
To add some color to your pie, you can also use purple carrots.
Finally, for a non-vegetarian version, you can also add smoked bacon strips.