Simple Pear, Leek and Walnut Pie
A simple pie recipe with pear, leek and walnuts baked in puff pastry. Serve with a salad or a cup of warm soup.
Ingredients
- 2 tbsp olive oil
- 1 leek
- 1 tsp salt
- 1-2 pears peeled and sliced
- 1/2 cup walnuts crushed
- goat or emmental cheese
- 1/4 tsp black pepper
- 1 roll puff pastry dough store-bought is fine
Instructions
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Preheat the oven to 200ºC.
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Rinse the leek with water, remove the upper and drier green leaves, and slice it into half moons. Sauté in a frying pan at medium heat with olive oil. You can add a little salt halfway through. Once they start caramelising, turn off the heat and set aside.
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Once the oven is hot, extend the puff pastry over a round springform cake tin (or similar should work). Usually the store-bought puff pastry doughs come rolled in baking paper – keep it, it will prevent the dough from sticking to the pan. Prick the base of the dough with a fork and bake for 5-7 mins. Remove from the oven.
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Add the fried leek, the pear(s) – peeled and sliced – and the walnuts. Optionally, add your favourite goat cheese or some emmental, then crack some black pepper on top. Fold in the edges of the dough. Bake 20-25 mins, until the puff pastry becomes golden brown.
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Allow it cool down for 10 mins and serve with a nice green salad.
Notes
How to store
Ideally, you want to eat this dish fresh from the oven. If you find yourself with leftovers:
- Store in the fridge for up to 2 days.
- Microwave or bake gently to reheat.
Simple Pear, Leek & Walnut Pie
Combining sweet and savoury has always been a little enjoyment of mine. When I was a kid, I remember my favourite weirdest combination was snacking on fuet* and red heart-shapped glazed cookies from a nearby bakery. Sole often got me sweet treats as a merienda* in the afternoons, after school. Looking back, it does sound like a strange combination, but I loved it so much.
I realize mixing savoury and sweet is actually not that strange, it’s done in many different cuisines and ways. This particular pie combines pear (sweet) and cheese (salty, savoury). Leek, when cooked, becomes quite sweet as weel (onions have a good amount of natural sugars in them). Walnuts are not particularly sweet or savoury, they add crunchiness and fat.
You could make your own puff pastry, but here I used a store-bought puff pastry roll. It’s a simple quick way to put together a dish that will most probably make everybody at home happy.
*fuet: the most typical dried pork sausage (embutit) that most Catalan kids grow up eating. I always say I was probably born with a fuet in my hand – I used to eat a little (or a lot) every day until my late teens.
*merienda: the Spanish word to refer to the afternoon snack. All kids have merienda, and apparently for many people this habit never grows old and is still very much part of their day’s routine.
Freestyling and substitutions
If you don’t have a particular ingredient, fear not. The whole point of most recipes in this blog is to give you tools to improvise and make the most of what you already have at home, rather than make you feel like you need to run to the nearest store and get every single listed ingredients.
If you don’t have pear… Apples will taste good here too!
If you don’t have leeks… Regular onions are fine.
If you don’t have walnuts… Almonds, cashews or hazelnuts could work well too.
Serve this dish with
A warm soup
A fresh salad
IN YOUR KITCHEN
If you try this recipe, please let me knowyour thoughts and comments down below, in the comment section.
If you share it on social media, I’d love to see it! Tag me @silvia.cooks and use #SilviaCooks.
Bon profit!
Silvia
