Mushroom Wellington- Daring Cooks December

Well after being 2 months (!) late on posting my last challenge I couldn't lame out and wait until February to post about December's challenge; which was to make some kind of savory puff pastry dish. The obvious application was either salmon en croute or beef wellington. Now I don't really like fish so salmon was out. And try as I might I couldn't get excited about the beef wellington. Maybe it was the fact that in the past two weeks I've worked my way through a 12 sticks of butter making Kwan/han/Chris/Festivus cookies for my many adoring family members, friends, classmates and even my professors. I made Chocolate Chip Cookies with Hawaiian sea salt, (I promise you these are the best cookies ever and even if you cut corners and use cheap nestle chips and don't refrigerate it for 72 hours they will still taste awesome) Molly from Orangette's chocolate rads, super wickedly easy peanut butter cookies and my godmother's raspberry bars. Not to mention I celebrated Hanukkah, which in addition to be the festival of light, is also the festival of frying things in oil. Oh yeah and there was thanksgiving in the not so distant past and Christmas in the not so distant future. So between all of that rich cooking and eating I just couldn't justify buying and eating filet mignon. Save it for another day.

So in the spirit of the challenge but not the letter, I decided to make my own recipe and creating my own Mushroom Wellington

For the puff pastry I used a recipe that I got from a savory pastry class that I attended at L'Academie Cuisine in Bethesda. This recipe from epicurious is close enough. You can also buy puff pastry from peperridge farms. It is not as good as the real thing but will do in a pinch. I only needed about a third of the dough, the rest is in my freezer for annother day.

For the filling, I created two different mushroom dishes. The base was a mushroom duxelle (which is often used as part of the filling for a traditional Beef Wellington) The recipe goes something like this:

Duxelles

1 tablespoons butter

1/2 pound cremini (aka baby bella) mushrooms, finely chopped (chop them as finely as you can)

1/4 cup minced shallots

2 tablespoons minced garlic

6 tablespoons wine (port would be best but all I had on hand was white wine)

black pepper and salt

1/2 cup of bread crumbs

Preheat oven to 375 degrees

In a large saute pan, heat the butter When it has melted and hot, add the mushrooms and saute for 6 minutes. Add the shallots and garlic and continue to saute for 4 minutes. Season with salt and pepper. Add the port wine and cook until almost all the liquid has cooked off, about 4 to 6 minutes. Remove the duxelle from the pan and cool completely and then mix in bread crumbs.

Sauted Mushrooms:

4-6 oz of wild mushrooms (I used shitake and chantrelles) sliced

1 tbl butter

parsley

salt and pepper

Heat the butter in the pan and then throw in the sliced mushrooms. Mushrooms should soften in about 4-6 minutes. Throw in chopped parsley for a little color and season to taste.

To assemble:

Roll out puff pastry to about a 12 inches by 9. Place duxelle mixture in the middle of the pastry and then layer the sauted mushrooms on top.

With a sharp knife, cut the pastry either side of the filling, into strips. Start in the left hand corner and work at a forty-five degree angle towards the filling. Then repeat on the right hand side.

Fold in the pastry ends first and then cross over the pastry strips from alternate sides.

When the mixture is well-wrapped within the pastry, glaze the pastry parcel with the beaten egg. Bake in the oven for 30-40 minutes.

Serves 4