Russian Vegetable Pie
"My mom recently asked me for this recipe, and I thought I'd post it here. (The reason she asked me for it, is because I took her copy of "The Vegetarian Epicure" when I left for college 15 years ago!)
This is a satisfying winter meal. The kind for vegetarians to serve to skeptical omnivores. While I haven't tried it, I think this would make a good vegan recipe with the sub of Earth Balance for butter, and silken tofu (maybe with a little curry or turmeric mixed in?) replacing the layer of cream cheese."
- Ready In:
- 1hr 25mins
- Ingredients:
- 13
- Serves:
-
4
ingredients
-
Pastry
- 295.73 ml flour
- 4.92 ml sugar
- 4.92 ml salt
- 113.39 g softened cream cheese
- 44.37 ml butter
-
Filling
- 1 small head cabbage (about 3 cups shredded)
- 226.79 g mushroom
- 1 yellow onion
-
To taste
- marjoram, basil, tarragon, salt and fresh ground pepper
- 44.37 ml butter
- 113.39 g softened cream cheese
- 4-5 hard-boiled eggs
- dill
directions
- Make a pastry by sifting together the dry ingredients, cutting in the butter and working it together with the cream cheese.
- Roll out 2/3 of the pastry and line a 9-inch pie dish.
- Roll out the remaing pastry and make a circle large enough to cover the dish.
- Put it away to chill.
- Preheat oven to 400.
- Shred a small head of cabbage coarsely.
- Wash the mushrooms and slice them.
- Peel and chop the onion.
- In a large skillet, melt 2 tbs butter.
- Add onion and cabbage. Sauté for several minutes, stirring constantly.
- Add at least 1/8 tsp each of marjoram, tarragon and basil (all crushed) and some salt and pepper.
- Stirring often allow the mixture to cook until the cabbage is wilted and the onions soft. Remove from the pan and set aside.
- Add another tbs of butter to the pan, and sauté the mushrooms lightly for about 5 or 6 minutes, stirring constantly.
- Spread the cream cheese in the bottom of the pie shell.
- Slice the eggs and arrange the slices in a layer over the cheese.
- Sprinkle them with a little chopped dill, then cover them with the cabbage.
- Make a final layer of the sautéed mushrooms and cover with the circle of pastry.
- Press the pastry together tightly at the edges and flute them.
- With a sharp knife, cut a few short slashes through the top crust.
- Bake in a 400 degree oven for 15 mintues, then turn the temperature down to 350 degrees and continue baking for another 20-25 minutes or until the crust is light brown.
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Reviews
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This is an awesome recipe. I first heard of it over 39 years ago when my wife-to-be and I were invited by a friend of hers to dinner. We sat down to the table and there were two beautiful pies in front of us. “Great! Dessert,” I thought. I was wrong, I soon found out (to my dismay), as they served out a quarter pie to each of us. Pies with cabbage and onions and hard-boiled eggs – all things I didn’t like. It’s a times like that I wished that I hadn’t come from a family that taught me, “If you’re a guest at someone’s home and they serve you something to eat, you eat it – and thank them for it.” So I started to eat, and was amazed. It was GOOD! I asked about the recipe and about how it was made. I decided that it must have been the cream cheese crust that made it bearable, but it wasn’t that. The whole pie was delicious. I must have made an impression on our hosts because a few months later when my wife and I opened our wedding presents we opened a copy of “The Vegetarian Epicure” with the listing for “Russian Vegetable Pie circled in the index and a bookmark marking the recipe. That copy is still among my cookbooks, though considerably dog-eared and splotched. I recommend this recipe to you. Just as it is it is wonderful. Over the years I’ve made my own tweaks to it. You can find them over in the tweaks section. Good eating! -
Delicious! I've never made or eaten anything quite like this before. It's very rich and flavorful but none of the flavors were overwhelming. All the ingredients really complimented one another. I had to add a little water to crust to get it to roll. The cream cheese in the crust is a genius addition. Thanks for sharing this recipe, I really enjoyed trying it. -
I was introduced to this in graduate school by my boyfriend and have loved it ever since. To reduce fat, used Green Mountain Farm Greek cream cheese and Greek yogurt and it tasted just as good. This is one of those recipes you spring on unsuspecting meatatarians. Almost without exception, they love it.
Tweaks
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The Russian Vegetable Pie recipe from “The Vegetarian Epicure” is wonderful find. I recommend the whole book (and I’m definitely not a vegetarian). Over the 39+ years I’ve used this recipe I’ve developed some tweaks to it which I’ll share with you. 1. I take the cream cheese and mix it very well into the flour mix. I work it until it is like corn meal – not something you would normally do to a pie crust! I then add the butter to that and work it in as I would a normal pie crust (cutting the butter into pieces the size of a dried pea). I usually use a 10 inch pie plate so I need more crust than the books recipe would make. I use 2.5 cups flour, ¼ tsp salt, 1 T sugar (optional), four oz of the cream cheese, and 1 stick of butter. I always have to use about 1/3 cup water to get it all to stick together (adding slowly, mixing, adding slowly, mixing, squishing together, etc.). This rolls out very well, better than most pie crusts (for me, at least) and makes lots of crust, which is a good thing as it is delicious! 2. I use much more cabbage than the recipe calls for, and I also use about 2/3 as much onion as cabbage. That way you can really pile up the filling in the pie and squish it down tight. It tends to leak, so make sure the bottom crust is big enough to wrap up around the top crust to make a leak-proof seal. This will also make a lot of edge crust which is a real treat! 3. I usually saute the onions separately from the cabbage (at first) until they are a golden brown. This isn’t necessary though as I’ve only recently started doing this and it’s not much different. 4. Start with the spices in the recipe then taste. Add whatever else you wish. I always add garlic, parmesan cheese, Italian seasonings, savory, beef or chicken bouillon. I often add other things that catch my fancy (Soy sauce, dash of vinegar, lemon, just about anything). 5. I chop up the hard-boiled eggs. That makes a more even layer. 6. I heat up the four oz of cream cheese for 15-30 seconds to soften it prior to spreading it over the bottom of the pie crust. It makes it so much easier to spread (and I get to lick the spoon when I’m done). 7. I mix the mushrooms right in with the cabbage/onion mix. That way there’s more of a chance to get a bite of mushrooms more often as I work through the pie. That’s about all my tweaks. The recipe is great even without these, so be sure to try it! --Michael B.
RECIPE SUBMITTED BY
Kendra PeloJoaquin
Seattle, WA
I learned to cook at a very early age, and like my teacher (mother) I am famous for cooking without recipes. This habit makes for unique delicious *unrepeatable* meals. My plan is to use this site in a way that neither my mother or myself have ever learned to use paper and pen; to record my "concoctions" for posterity.
