“Oooh, I do like a bit of cheese” as Wallace likes to claim. It’s a sentiment we agree with. Maybe a bit too much but hey, we all have our vices! One of my husband’s favourite crisp flavours is cheese and onion so I thought as a treat I would make a cheese and onion pie. As I thought it was a treat from his childhood I wanted to get this right!
This is not overly difficult but there are a lot of steps to this. You’ll need a few hours to get this done. I researched several recipes and decided to use this Foodie with Family recipe as a guide. I did change a few things.
I had two very large onions which I sliced thinly. Oh the tears! In a skillet melt 4 tablespoons of butter to start with. Add more butter as needed as the onions cook down.
The onions will mound up in the skillet but after several minutes of slowly cooking the onions will soften and cook down.
As the onions cook, add 1/2 cup of veg bouillon and about 5 teaspoons of coleman’s mustard. Feel free to add a bit more if you like the heat. Season with sea salt and pepper. Simmer for a few minutes to reduce the liquid a bit.
Remove from the heat and let cool. Grate 1 1/2 pounds/675oz of sharp cheddar cheese. Yes, it’s a huge amount of cheese! In a large bowl beat two eggs and add 1/2 cup/4oz double cream. Add the onions.
Mix in the cheese completely.
Set that aside. Preheat the oven to 350F/175C.
Next prepare the hot water pastry, though in this case it’s hot milk pastry. In a mixing bowl sift together 3 cups/12 3/4 oz of all purpose flour and 3/4 tsp of kosher salt. Make a well in the flour.
In a saucepan, melt a cup/1/2 pound of butter, 1/3 cup/2.5oz of whole milk and about 4 teaspoons of coleman’s mustard.
Simmer but don’t boil. Pour into the flour well.
Mix well until the ingredients come together in a ball.
On a lightly floured surface knead the dough for a couple of minutes to work the gluten. This is a pastry where you don’t have to worry about overworking which is a nice change.
Line a 10″/25cm springform pan with parchment paper. Divide the dough into two balls, roughly in a 60/40 ratio. Now this dough is very fiddly! There were some words spoken as I rolled it out and tried to get it into the pan. Forget having it done in one piece! Use your knuckles to press it into the pan and up the sides.
Fill the pastry with the cheese and onion mixture. Top with the remaining pastry. As best you can pinch the seam of the top and bottom together. Use a knife to cut vents in the top. Beat an egg and add a tablespoon of the whole milk. Brush this over the top of the pie.
Bake 60-75 minutes until the pastry is golden brown.
Let it cool and allow the cheese to set a bit before serving. I found I prefer it served cold but it’s good warm or cold.
My husband loved this. Turns out this was the first ever cheese and onion pie he had! So instead of an old tradition it’s become a new one. 🙂
