Vegetable Pie with Butterbean Mash

Origin

I’ve been making quite a few Greek dishes, and I love the creaminess of beans cooked in olive oil. This recipe made me think of making the beans into the mash in a pie-style dish. I am sure you could vary this with a different combination of vegetables, depending on what you have available.

Ingredients

• 800 grams (cooked weight) giant white beans
• 2 sprigs fresh thyme
• 1/2 cup olive oil
• 200 grams potato
• 1 large onion
• 1 medium carrot
• 1 handful of dried mu-err mushrooms
• 150 grams tinned corn, drained and rinsed
• 250 grams mushrooms
• 2 handfuls of frozen peas
• 3 stalks celery
• 3 large tomatoes
• 2 tablespoons vegetarian Worcestershire sauce
• 1 teaspoon nutritional yeast (optional)
• 1 teaspoon seaweed flakes (optional)
• 2 teaspoons cornstarch
• salt to taste

Process

Soak the mu-err mushrooms for at least half an hour in cool water and rinse them well before using.

Soak the beans overnight if using them dried. Cook in a little water with all but 2 tablespoons of olive oil until soft. If you are using canned beans, drain and rinse them and add them to a pan with enough water to cover and all but 2 tablespoons of the olive oil. Add salt and fresh thyme and simmer the beans for half an hour. Drain the beans, reserving the liquid. Remove and discard the thyme stems.

Mash the beans, using one tablespoon of olive oil and some of the reserved cooking water. Add salt to taste. Set aside.

The reserved bean liquid should measure about four cups. Reduce it if there is too much.

Dice the potato, carrot and tomato and put them to simmer in a pan with the reserved bean liquid. Dice the celery, mushrooms and mu-err mushrooms and add them to the pan.

Dice the onion and cook on medium-low heat in a frying pan with the remaining tablespoon of oil until soft and just beginning to brown. Add the onion to the other pan, along with the peas and corn. Preheat the oven to 180° Celsius/350° Fahrenheit. Cook until the carrots, potato and celery are soft and the tomatoes have dissolved.

Add nutritional yeast, seaweed flakes, Worcestershire sauce and salt to taste. Drain the vegetables, reserving the liquid. Put the vegetables in a square baking dish.

Put the cornstarch in a small bowl and add liquid to blend. Mix the slurry into the pan. Let the liquid cook down until thick, then pour it over the vegetables.

Top the vegetables with the bean mash and cook for 30 minutes, until the bean mixture is just starting to turn golden on top.

 

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I also thought it benefited from a pinch of salt.

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This looked nice but the sauce was too lemony for my taste.

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