Cornish Blue and veggie 'stargazy' pie recipe

Ingredients (serves two, generously)

1 small onion, finely chopped

2 carrots, chopped

1 leek, sliced

100g button mushrooms, cut in half

8-10 chunky asparagus stalks (reserve the spears with a four-inch stalk and chop up any remaining stalks)

1 tbsp. olive oil

1 tbsp. butter

1 heaped tbsp. plain flour

500ml milk

1 tsp thyme leaves

100g Cornish Blue cheese, crumbled or chopped

125g all-butter puff pastry

One egg, beaten

Salt and pepper

Heat the olive oil and butter in a large frying pan or cooking pot and sauté the onion, carrots, leek and asparagus stalks for about ten minutes, stirring to make sure they don’t stick and burn. Add the mushrooms and cook for a further five minutes.

Add the flour and stir well to mix it through the vegetables. Add the milk gradually, continuously stirring so that it forms a white sauce around the vegetables.

Add the thyme leaves and season with pepper. Hold off on the salt for now and add the cheese next, stirring as it melts through. Check for seasoning and pour the mixture into one large dish or individual ramekins.

Roll out the pastry to about 1/2cm thick, drape it over the dish and cut to size, using scissors and leaving a slight overhang. Press down to secure it on the edges of the dish. Using the point of the scissors, make several small holes in the top of the pastry and poke the asparagus stalks through to leave the spears showing. It helps if you cut the stalks to make a pointy end and you also need to be prepared to wiggle them about a bit, so that they don’t get in each other’s way. Brush with the beaten egg.

Bake in a pre-heated oven at 200/180 fan-assisted/Gas Mark 6 for about 30 minutes, or until the pastry is golden and the mixture bubbling inside.