Tuna parsnotto pie or creamy heaven in a tin tray

Sometimes you strike gold when you don't expect it and possibly because you didn't follow the rules. Being a rebel rocks! I live for moments like this one. All the kitchen failures are worth it, only to succeed once. Trial and error, followed by trial and success.

During one of my recent ventures into the Pinterest Jungle, I found a recipe made by an Italian-Australian cook, posted on her page 'Chow Town'. It was a tuna risotto pie, three words that on their own tempted me and together blew my mind. I would happily have made it exactly according to the recipe, had it not been for the risk of wolfing down the entire pie in one sitting due to the rice. Why not swap the rice for parsnip rice and make it a little less carby? It was bound to be lush anyway, thanks to the cheese.

Talking about cheese, the recipe called for baby bocconcini, which for all I knew could be pink elephants. As usual, Google enlightened me and taught me that it was mini mozzarella balls and that made a lot more sense than baby elephants in a pie. Even so, I didn't have any at home. Sure, I could buy some, or I could use the mascarpone that I had in the fridge. I decided not to go shopping.

While I was in non-shopping mode, I decided to make my own semi-dried tomato slices. That didn't go according to plan. If you want tomatoes in your pie, don't follow my advice, but use shop bought ones.

In regards to seasoning, I have a fear of plain food. When the recipe said garlic, salt and pepper, I read garlic, salt, pepper, chilli paste, dill and parsley. Almost the same, right? In hindsight I can honestly say that the added seasoning helped turning this dish into heaven in a tin tray. My instincts were right.

My final swap was kale for cabbage, again because I had one and not the other. Also, they are both from the cabbage family, so it wouldn't make much of a difference.

You know when you eat something really nice, you automatically assume it is jam-packed with calories. This pie certainly tasted like a calorie bomb, so I decided to check it. Every single item in the correct amount went into an online calculator. I actually ran them through several different calculators, as some of them varied a fair bit. While I was at it, I also checked the numbers for mini mozzarella balls, as well as ordinary mozzarella, in case you want to follow the original recipe.

Having no idea about the calories in this meal when I made it, I ended up cutting the parsnotto pie into 6 wedges, each piece making a decent portion alongside a side salad. For that reason I based the calculation on the same size slice. Using mini mozzarella balls gave the lowest count, 280 calories per slice. Normal mozzarella brought it up to 300 and my creamy version with mascarpone weighed in at 380 calories per slice. As a dinner with a salad, which of course also has to be counted if you want to know the grand total, that's still not bad. 

If you want to make the original tuna risotto pie, search Pinterest and if you find a page with the headline 'Chow Town - cook shoot eat repeat' you have come to the right place. If you on the other hand want to make my version, which I have decided to call tuna parsnotto pie, the instructions can be found below.

To make my pie, you need:

500 g parsnips, blitzed into rice

2 tins of tuna in water

3 eggs

1 onion, chopped

2 garlic cloves, finely chopped

1 tomato (I can recommend 1/2 cup shop bought semi dried tomatoes instead)

250 g mascarpone

50 g parmesan, grated

4 large cabbage leaves, chopped

1 tsp chilli paste such as sambal oelek

1 stock cube (I used fish, but the recipe called for chicken)

a slosh of rose wine and a little water

salt & pepper

dill

parsley

1. Get the ingredients out.

I added a few later on, such as herbs, wine and water.

2. If you don't have any semi dried tomatoes, slice a tomato finely and place it onto a tin foil clad oven tray. Season with salt to draw out some of the moisture and bake in the oven while preparing the rest of the ingredients.

3. Peel and chop the parsnips. 

4. Pop the chunks into a food processor and blitz until it resembles rice. If you don't have a handy gadget for this, you can use a grater.

Grating parsnips is a great arm muscle exercise, one that I prefer to avoid. Bingo-wings are in fashion at the moment, so I'll stick with my food processor.

5. Chop the onion and garlic.

6. Soften the onion and add the garlic after a little while. 

This is when I re-read the recipe and realised that there was no seasoning apart from the very basics. There wasn't even supposed to be any chilli, but I thought that would be suitable. I decided to add parsley and dill as well, because you can never have too much flavour.

7. Add the chilli paste and stir to mix it with the onion, then add the parsnip rice and stir again to combine.

8. Add a crumbled stock cube and some liquid, not a lot. 

For a dish with proper rice, it would have been cooked in stock, but parsnip rice needs a lot less liquid. I simply crumbled the cube straight into the pan and added a slosh of wine and little water, less than 1 cup in total.

9. Season with salt, pepper and whatever else you fancy. Because parsnips are quite sweet, you need a fair amount of salt. Cook until all liquid has been soaked up. It will only take a few minutes, unless you have added too much water. Don't do that. Look at the photo. You can't even see any liquid around the edges. That's enough.

Check on the tomatoes in the oven.

10. Grate the parmesan and chop the cabbage.

11. To a large bowl, add the rice mixture, tuna, parmesan, 200 g ricotta (hold some back for the top), eggs and cabbage. If you are using jarred tomatoes, chop and add them as well. If you are baking your own, chop and add them as well (or see number 14).

12. Mix well.

13. Line a spring tin with greaseproof paper and fold the mixture into the tin. Dollop the remaining ricotta on the top. Keep it flat or it will burn.

I made nice little dollops, but after 10 minutes in the oven, I had to take the tin out to flatten the cream-cheesy lumps as they were getting black spots.

If you don't know what a spring tin is, it is one of those with a clasp on the side. The edge of the tin will spring open when you flip the clasp, releasing the pie.

14. Take the tomato tray out of the oven and sigh in despair, then throw the burnt slices away. It would be too late to put them into the mixture anyway at this point.

15. Bake for 25 minutes at 200 degrees. Take the tin out and leave the pie to rest for 10 minutes.

16. After leaving it to rest, release the spring edge of the pan and keep your fingers crossed that the pie will hold together. 

Top tip: Gently lift the sides and rip the greaseproof paper out from underneath the pie. If left on, it is likely to get stuck and you will end up eating it, ruining the experience. Trust me on this one. I learned the hard way when making vegetable based pizza.

17. Cut a slice and serve with a crispy salad. Enjoy!

I really enjoyed this pie and will most definitely make it again, but first I will have it as a boomerang dinner tomorrow. I can't wait. To tell you the truth, I'm currently fighting the urge to go and raid the fridge, even if I'm stuffed. 

While not returning to the fridge, honestly, I'm considering options involving this recipe. Few things are as exciting as finding a good basic recipe to play with. Considering that I have already strayed away from the original, I may as well push the boat out even further. How about returning to mozzarella, but swapping tuna for ham or cooked chicken? Perhaps add some paprika and pepper... And how about asparagus? The options are endless. Let's play!