I while ago I had a reader ask about my tempeh ragù recipe. Shouldn’t that be ragoût? To be honest, I wasn’t sure. I had a momentary freak out over the possibility of naming my recipe after a familiar brand of jarred pasta sauce. It’s okay though. I Googled around and from what I understand, they’re two different things: a ragù being a meat sauce, and a ragoût being a kind of loosely defined stew with lots of stuff in it. Anyway, that’s sort of what Food & Wine had to say about the issue. So I added ragoût to my list of things to make. And since ragoût is so loosely defined, I threw in all kinds of stuff, basically making it up as I went along. Oh, and I turned it into a pie, because pie. If you’re not down with the pie thing I’m sure this would be great over pasta or polenta, but I loved it as a pie. So let’s talk about this pie. This is not like grandma’s chicken pot pie. If you’re looking for that (in vegan form, obviously), go here. My ragoût pot pie has a lot going on, flavor-wise, between the veggies, chickpeas, tomatoes, herbs, wine, and oh, olives! It’s intensely flavorful and super comforting, in a different kind of way than vegan chicken pot pie though. Puff pastry has quickly become my favorite savory pie crust, not just because it’s delicious, but also because lots of store-bought brands are accidentally vegan. And this pie has a top and bottom crust, because I used a top and bottom crust in another different but intensely flavorful pot pie a while back, and the way the layers of crust just hug the fillings is so perfect.
