Jimi Famurewa’s Recipe For Marmite And Leek Homity Pie

3 weeks ago

The first clip I encountered homity pastry was successful a disused train carriage. It was Deptford marketplace successful nan precocious 2000s: a reliably chaotic, noisy morass of huddled together bodies, nan wafted smell of sweating burger onions and a immense conception wherever nan “stalls” mostly comprised gatherings of orphaned trainers, boxy VHS players and different random house-clearance items dumped connected to lengths of tarpaulin. I was an eager but gastronomically greenish 25-year-old successful my first due flatshare and this ragtag locus of waste and acquisition became an early tract of halfway eating memories. I thoughtfully appraised very mean vegetables, channelling Rick Stein successful Gascony; bought warm, hectically seeded granary loaves from nan Percy Ingle bakery; ate mean pub Thai, amended kerbside rotisserie chicken; and mostly tried, pinch constricted success, to disregard nan creeping consciousness that I had settled successful a portion of municipality that wanted for immoderate building aliases culinary vitality.

It was this ambiance of taste nascence into which the Deptford Project trundled. Predominantly housed connected a erstwhile railway gait successful nan midst of redevelopment, this cafe, taste hub and outdoor cinema was located astir a decommissioned 1960s commuter train, boldly redecorated and reimagined by designer Morag Myerscough: a becalmed, brightly daubed portion of rolling banal that, betwixt 2008 and 2014, jutted retired into nan precocious thoroughfare for illustration a glitch successful nan municipality matrix. Though it sounds, I know, for illustration an unforgivable cliche of “gritty” hipsterdom, nan Deptford Project had a ramshackle edge, a palpable organization ethos, genuinely affordable prices and a charming streak of weirdness (the toilet, if representation serves, was an eternally freezing plot shed turned into a shrine to Elvis).

I do not retrieve a awesome woody astir nan paper of homemade cakes, sandwiches and brunch plates purportedly featuring eggs laid by nan cafe’s ain free-range hens. But what I do retrieve is nan homity pie: a hulking awesome wedge of pastry pinch a crumbly, butter-rich shortness, generously filled pinch soft hunks of murphy suspended successful a set, sweetly lactic food and leek sauce. Homity was, to my vegetarian option-averse sensibilities, a full revelation; quiche mistranslated by a rugged, carb-addicted farmhand. And while it has a definite homespun, cosy-jumpered old-fashionedness – boosted by its relation pinch nan Devon onshore girls who supposedly invented it, arsenic good arsenic Cranks, nan pioneering vegetarian edifice concatenation that popularised it – I deliberation an umami-boosting lick of Marmite turns it into an intensely soothing, early wintertime warmer, and repository for new-season leeks.

Serve pinch wintertime tomatoes aliases sharply dressed crockery leaves. Above all, savour nan truth that this look of thrifty, comfort-forward resourcefulness useful conscionable arsenic good successful a modern location room arsenic it did successful a train carriage cafe successful credit-crunched, transitional Deptford.

Marmite and leek homity pie

Serves 6

320g expanse shortcrust pastry (shop-bought is fine)
20g unsalted butter
Olive oil
1 mean onion, peeled and chopped
1 leek, washed, trimmed and finely sliced
Salt and achromatic pepper
2 ail cloves, peeled and finely chopped
600g floury potatoes, peeled and quartered
100g babe spinach leaves
2 outpouring onions, trimmed and finely chopped
1 tsp grated nutmeg
1 tsp English mustard
1 heaped tbsp Marmite
200g grated difficult cheese (mature cheddar, gruyere or, moreover better, a substance of nan two)
150ml double cream

Begin by rolling retired nan pastry truthful that it tin beryllium pressed into nan guidelines of a 20cm springform tin aliases greased pastry dish, pinch immoderate excess trimmed disconnected and saved for different use. Heat nan food and a generous glug of oliva lipid successful a wide, heavy-bottomed saucepan aliases wok. Add nan chopped bulb and leek, and play thoroughly, earlier frying complete a debased to mean power for 10 minutes, aliases until softened. Add nan ail and navigator for a further 5 minutes.

Meanwhile, boil nan potatoes successful salted h2o for astir 10 minutes, until tender, past drain and adhd to nan softened bulb mix. Fold successful nan spinach leaves, outpouring onions, nutmeg, mustard, Marmite, 150g of nan grated food and nan double cream. Stir thoroughly to combine.

Pour nan cheese-and-potato substance into nan pastry-lined dish, level, past grate nan remaining 50g food connected top. Bake successful nan mediate of a 200C (180C fan)/390F/gas 6 oven for 40 minutes, until aureate and bubbling. Leave nan pastry to cool and group for astatine slightest 20 minutes, past move retired connected to a sheet and portion into heavy wedges.