This is a quick blog for everyone because I realise that we are all busy with the holidays; however, I really wanted to share this with all of you in case any of you are looking for a side dish that really stands out. It’s the time to be festive and this side dish has everything you need and want to accompany any roast you may be preparing. It’s a mix between a potato casserole (where the potatoes have been finely sliced and layered with cheese and onion) and a quiche. It’s intricate and beautiful.
I’ll admit that it takes a bit of time to prepare; however, the results are truly breathtaking! It’s a spiral of vegetables and cured ham that culminates in a roll that’s nestled in a crust of puff pastry and surrounded by a creamy and cheesy egg mixture that pulls it all together.
Here are some of the ingredients you’ll need:
Squash (like butternut for example), zucchini (courgette), sweet potato, white potato, carrots (orange and purple if you can find them), eggs, grated Grana Padano cheese, whole cream and dry-cured ham such as Iberico, Serrano or Prosciutto. (The ham can be left out to turn the pie into a lacto-ovo vegetarian dish as well.)
If you have a mandolin, use it to slice everything lengthwise and evenly. If you don’t, use a knife and try to cut everything thinly, about 2 mm (1/16 of an inch) thick. Blanch all the vegetable slices in salted boiling water for one minute and stop their cooking by plunging them into ice water, keeping all the vegetable types separate.
Click HERE to read the recipe now!
Line the Fornetto pie dish with parchment paper and prepare the pie. The Fornetto Oven, or your kamado, smoker or conventional oven should be preheated to 180C (350F).
What makes this dish really eye-catching, besides the fact that the vegetables are swirled inside a puff-pastry shell, is the fact that the purple carrots bleed into the other vegetables and makes it very exotic looking. If you can’t find purple carrots, try beets. They share their colour just as easily as the carrots do!
Once you’ve allowed the pie to cool, remove it from the pie dish. It will come out effortlessly because of the parchment paper. Be sure to serve it whole at the table and slice it in front of your guests.
When you slice it, you’ll notice all of the different colours and layers formed by having rolled up the vegetables before putting them in the pie shell. All this is held together with the cheese and egg mixture and despite this, the pie remains light; unlike a more dense quiche. You can easily serve it as a main as seen above with a salad on the side or as a side dish to accompany a hearty roast. After all, it’s basically is all the ingredients of normal side dishes literally “rolled” into one!
From the entire team at Fornetto, we wish you a Happy and Healthy Holiday with this colourful rendition of “classic sides” rolled into one!
