Chale Pie

A return to savory-land, and specifically to the excellent Martha Stewart recipe for Chard Pie used a few weeks ago. In this case I got much too small an amount of chard from the farmers' market, and had to use kale to make up the difference. Hence: Chale Pie. (or maybe Kard?)

Since I make it a practice to always make at least two really ridiculous mistakes in every pie, I forgot to add garlic to this (I didn't miss it much, but perhaps it coulda been more deliciouser with it), and also added so much quantity of red pepper flakes that the pie was near the outer limits of noshing pleasure, with a serious red-pepper burn. But, all in all, it was still delicious, and tasted great as a cold lunch the following day too. This recipe's officially a keeper.

Photographic evidence:

Mixing up the olive oil dough:

The dough in ball form:

Chopping chard (the beer wasn't a pie ingredient, more of a cooking accesory):

Washing chard leaves, and kale:

Softening onions, and adding too much red pepper:

Rolling out the dough (I used a bit of whole wheat flour this time, and got a very different texture as a result. I'm not sure which I like better but clearly there's some room for experimentation):

Shaping the dough, with a top on one side:

Cooking down the greens. Note that doing this in such a small pot is stupid. All my cooking times were about triple what the recipe calls for, and the greens barely fit into the pot at all. One of these days, gotta get a decent stockpot.

After draining & pressing out liquid (which I saved as stock- though what exactly I'll use chard/kale/red pepper brine for is a mystery), mixing in the cheese. I used Asiago this time, with pretty good results. As with the previous time around, more cheese is better. I could barely tell there was any in the finished pie.

Assembled:

Topped, brushed with egg yolk, and vented:

And, fresh out of the oven:

 Served up on a plate with some lemony asparagus:

 Next week I'll be travelling, and may or may not accomplish a pie. But I'll be back soon. On the downhill slope of my year's commitment, so now's the time when I'm supposed to start getting good at this stuff...