Chestnut, spinach, and blue cheese en-croute

⏲ Prep: 1 hour and 20 minutes and Cook for 50 minutes plus 1 hour chilling

🍽Serves: 6 – 8 persons

ingredients

For the sauce

instructions

Step: 1 Liquefy the butter in a big frying pan. Add the leeks and garlic, whisk well, cover, and cook for 10 minutes up to the leeks are soft, whisking a few times to check that they don’t catch. Tip into a big bowl. Place the spinach in the pan and let it become limp. Leave to chill and, when chilly, squeeze out as much liquid from it as you possibly can.

Step: 2 Tip the chestnut purée into the bowl with the leeks and add the 3 eggs, the nutmeg, chestnuts, spinach, breadcrumbs, cheese, and seasoning, and whisk until well combined. Chill for at least 1 hour until the combination firms up.

Step: 3 Heat oven to 220C/200C fan/gas 7. On a lightly floured work surface, roll out the pastry to a rectangle large enough to completely enclose the stuffing. Carefully lift onto a large, long baking tray that has been lined with baking parchment, after that brush all over the edges of the pastry with the remaining egg. Spoon the stuffing down the center of the length of the pastry, leaving the ends clear.

Step: 4 Tuck the ends over the stuffing, then thoroughly lift the sides to wrap them around, trimming away any unwanted pastry as you go. Brush with more egg to varnish, then make a few holes in the peak so steam can escape as it cooks. Bake for 40 minutes until golden and the stuffing is firm. Remove from the oven, brush with more glaze, and bake for 10 minutes more.

Step: 5 To prepare the sauce, heat the stock in a medium pan, add the leeks, boil for 5 mins, then take off the heat and scoop out 2 tbsp of the leeks. Blitz the rest in the pan with the cornflour using a hand blender, after that cook, whisking, until thickened. Pour in the cream and reserved leeks and warm through. Can be made 2 days ahead and chilled. Plate up the pastry in thick slices with the sauce.