Sausage and leek pie

Sometimes you just need pastry.

As I was moaning to my culinary compatriots at Nigella.com earlier, I was struck by a bubble of PhD blues today, a chronic condition suffered by masochistic folks who put themselves through an extra 4 years of university than is entirely necessary... In my experience there are 3 successful ways to pull yourself out of this malaise: prayer (probably most effective!), long walks (the healthy option), and cooking (not always the healthy option). I went for cooking today, prayer will come tomorrow morning...

Ingredients

• 240g plain flour
• 120g butter
• 3-5 tablespoons iced water
• 6 good beef sausages, skins removed and broken into small lumps
• 3-4 small leeks, rinsed well and finely sliced
• 1 onion, peeled and finely chopped
• Zest 1/2 lemon
• Good bunch flat leaf parsley, finely chopped
• 1/2 cup grated Parmesan
• 2 large eggs, beaten

Method

• Cut the butter into small lumps, mix through the flour and freeze them together for 10 minutes.
• After 10 minutes tip the whole lot into a food processor and blitz to rubble, then add tablespoonfuls of icy water, pulsing, until the pastry comes together.
• Turn out and knead briefly, then divide into 2 disks, wrap them in cling and leave to rest in the fridge for 20 minutes.
• Preheat the oven to 200C/390F.
• Cook the onion, leek and sausage together in a large frying pan until the veg are softened and the meat cooked and getting slightly crispy. Pepper well and set aside.
• Mix the egg with the parsley, lemon zest and Parmesan.
• Using one disk of pastry, line a 20cm pie plate or low sided cake tin, leaving a little overhang of pastry.
• Tumble in the leek and sausage mixture, spreading it evenly in the pasty base, then pour over the egg mix.
• Roll out the second pastry disk to form a lid, and attach it to the overhang of the base using a little cold water. Cut off the excess pastry and crimp all round the edges to seal the lid. Made a hole in the centre of the pie with a fork to release trapped steam.
• Sit the pie plate or cake tin on a baking tray and cook in the middle of the oven for 30 minutes until golden.
• Let sit for 10 minutes before eating.