Cashew Nut and Tomato Pate en Croute

This is from Rose Elliot's 'The Classic Vegetarian Cookbook'. I made this for a pie party so I changed the method a bit to make it more like a pie than a bake, I'll write out the method as Rose Elliot does it and then what I did differently.

Gas mark 4/180 degrees/350 fahrenheit.

Butter to coat tin (I used baking paper instead)

2 tbsp sundried tomato or olive oil

1 large onion, finely chopped

2 large cloves of garlic, finely chopped

400g can chopped tomatoes, drained and chopped

12 sundried tomatoes in oil, finely chopped

200g cashew nuts, finely chopped

Grated rind of half a lemon

1 tbsp chopped fresh basil

1 egg, beaten (I used egg replacer, much better and it makes the pie vegan)

salt and pepper

250g frozen puff pastry OR homemade quick flaky pastry (see bottom of post)

-Preheat the oven and line the tin.

-Using the oil, fry the onion and garlic (I also added the sundried tomatoes here, though Rose Elliot says to do this after removing from the heat) in a covered pan for 5 minutes.

-Add the tinned tomatoes and cook (uncovered) until the liquid evaporates.

-Remove from the heat and stir in the cashew nuts, lemon rind, basil, the egg/replacer, salt and pepper.

-Smooth the mixture into the lined tin and smooth the top.

-Bake for about an hour, until firm. Allow to cool, remove from the tin, wrap in clingfilm/foil and cool in the fridge.

-Turn the oven up to gas 6/200 centigrade/400 fahrenheit.

-Roll the pastry out to a 30cm square and cut off the top third. Place the pate on the smaller piece of pastry and drape the larger piece over the top, sealing the larger and smaller pieces together with water. Make steam holes in the top.

-Bake for a bout 25-30 minutes, until the pastry is crisped and puffed up.

I used the homemade pastry, and basically made the filling and cooked it for an hour, but then rather than chilling it so it retained the shape, I stirred it up to make a pie filling. I blind baked the pastry case, added the filling, and covered it with a pastry lid (with steam holes). Then baked it until the pastry browned.

Homemade quick flaky pastry:

175g strong white flour

1/4 tsp salt

125g cold butter (I used Vitalite vegan margarine)

Squeeze of lemon juice

Small jug of icy water

-Sift flour and salt, refrigerate for half an hour. It's important to keep all the ingredients as cold as possible in this recipe.

-Grate the butter into the flour (margarine does not grate at all... I just pushed it through a sieve and mixed it in, maybe it would've worked better if I'd frozen the margarine in a block first).

-Add the lemon juice.

-Mix with a fork, very gradually stir in the icy water to form a lumpy dough that just holds together and leaves the sides of the bowl clean.

-Wrap the dough in clingfilm and chill for 30 minutes.

-Use as required.