This adaptable seasonal favourite features a ricotta pastry with just the right amount of flaky crumble and a thick and richly flavoured filling
The other day, a friend who owns a food shop told me that, during the first lockdown, the air was thick with projects: she sold flour by the sack, loads of yeast, many types of dried beans, and litres and litres of vinegar. During the second lockdown, she noticed a new pattern of customers, old and new, coming to buy just a bottle of wine and a bar of chocolate. Of course, there were also people buying flour, yeast, beans and vinegar. However, we didn’t talk about them, because they clouded our more entertaining and much simpler idea. We decided that, this year, both purposeful projects and life are like pastry on top of a pie – in order to survive (baking), they require slashes, to let steam out… We require these “slashes”, whether it’s a bottle of wine and a bar of chocolate, chips and champagne, or a bag of crisps in the bath. In short, a generous amount of an undemanding thing, especially at this time of year – especially this year.
As well as undemanding, I want adaptable food; the kind of food that embodies my dad’s favourite expression – the one we would roll our eyes at, but then stuff up our sleeves – “keep expectations flexible”. I have every intention of making this roast pumpkin, mushroom and chestnut pie at some point over Christmas – “at some point” being the important words. Writing this in advance, Christmas is still necessarily nebulous and undecided; I have lists of things edible and otherwise that are like circling aircraft waiting for a landing slot. As yet, nothing is fixed. And this pie understands that the pumpkin, tub of ricotta and vacuum-packed chestnuts are all resilient ingredients, there for the 19th or the 29th, ready for an easy dinner with salad or to be part of a feast. And if, when it comes to cooking, pastry isn’t required, the mixture of roast pumpkin, mushroom, chestnuts and thyme can be lengthened into soup, or mixed with rice or a heap of couscous.