Mushroom Pot Pie

Last week on Top Chef Masters, my favorite, Carla 'Hootie-Hoo' Hall won with a chicken pot pie she made for Jimmy Fallon's birthday.  It looked so good, filled with Carla love, and the judges enjoyed it so much, I knew I had to make a veggie version for Sunday night.

In this recipe, the components are cooked separately and then assembled on individual plates rather than baked together as a pie.  It's complicated, but friends, it is so worth it.  You have complete control over all of the ingredients, so the veggies are perfectly cooked, the gravy is savory goodness itself, and the crust, is flaky and golden. 

Unlike many Top Chefs, Carla does a really detailed job writing her recipes up!  One day, I am going to make the pea salt everyone loved so much! Also stay-tuned, there will probably be an easier all-in-one dish version coming soon!  Meanwhile, for beautiful, delicious, individual 'pot' pies...

Mushroom Pot Pie

Adapted from Carla Hall's Chicken Pot Pie recipe

Makes 6 servings

Takes 2 hours

6 inch square piece of kombu*
2 dried shitake mushrooms
2 onions, diced
3 carrots, chopped
3 celery stalks, chopped
2 sprigs thyme
8 parsley stems
1 bay leaf
1 pound cremini mushrooms
1 shallot, diced
1 clove garlic, minced
5 oz. peas (frozen or fresh)

For Crust:
1/3 cup water
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon sugar
2 cups flour
1/2 pound vegan shortening
 
For the gravy: 
1 stick (1/4 cup) vegan shortening
1/2 cup flour
leaves from 8 parsley stems

In a quart of water, soak kombu and dried mushrooms for at least 3 hours and up to overnight.

Roughly chop the soaked mushrooms.

In a large pot, saute half the onions, carrots, celery, thyme, all of the parsley stems, the soaked mushrooms, and the bay leaf.  Once the onions have become translucent, add the kombu liquid (including the kombu), and an additional quart of water.  Just before it comes to a boil, remove the kelp pieces.  Once it comes to a boil, reduce to a simmer, and let simmer for at least an hour on a back burner while you take care of everything else.
 

Mix the water, salt and sugar and refrigerate.  Cut the shortening into the flour until it is like course meal.  Pour in the water and form into a dough ball, adding more flour, if necessary, to make a solid ball that doesn't stick to your hands.  Divide into 6 balls, and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes.

In a large skillet, on medium high heat, saute the shallots, garlic and mushrooms until they are all coated with oil and evenly distributed throughout the pan.  Then, leave them alone so that they begin to brown.  Stir once every 2 or 4 minutes until the mushrooms release their juices, Saute for an additional 2 to 3 minutes.  Transfer mushrooms to a bowl.

In the same skillet, adding more oil if necessary, saute the remaining onions and celery.  When they've become translucent, add the remaining carrots and thyme, and saute a little longer, don't let the vegetables brown.  Add a few ladles of the simmering broth, and simmer the vegetables until they are tender, about 10 minutes.  Just before they are done, add the frozen peas, cooking for just a few minutes.  Transfer the vegetables to the mushrooms.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit.

Roll out the dough on a floured board into 6 6-inch circles.  Lay them out onto greased parchment paper molded around a ball of aluminum foil or parchment paper.  Top with a little dough ball to give the appearance of a domed cover for the goodness underneath.  Lay the scraps of dough on another baking sheet.  Glaze the crusts with milk, soy milk or just water.  Bake for 15 to 20 minutes, changing their position in the oven half-way through.

While the crusts are baking, in large skillet, heat remaining shortening until melted, then add 1/2 cup of flour, stirring until the flour no longer smells like flour, but kind of toasty.  Strain the stock and add to the flour and shortening, whisking continuously until there are no lumps and it thickens up.  Add the vegetables and stir.  Keep warm until your crusts are ready.

To serve, divide the crust scraps between 6 plates, pour the veggies and gravy over and top with the crust.  Yum!

We went traditional London-style and ate our pies with mash!

Best Sunday night TV dinner ever!

*Kombu is used to make dashi, Japanese stock for soup.  The seaweed adds umami, but doesn't really have a flavor.  You can find it in Asian grocery stores and also in many health food stores. Before soaking, rinse it in water to remove the white residue.

cardamom pear loaf

Hello readers,

Perhaps like me, you've survived the great snowpocalypse that attacked much of North America (yes North America, dear States-side readers. When you see weather systems disappearing beyond the borders of the US on TV, they come here to Canada).  I can't bear the idea of leaving the house, the slushy streets, icy sidewalks, and the mountains of snow to be conquered on every street corner! All I want is cup upon cup of tea, and a little cake to go with it!

Inspired by a recent recipe on Gourmet Live, I devised a (vegan) cardamom pear loaf.  The original recipe is for a molasses cake, and I was intrigued by the method, which required adding boiling water and then freezing the dough to supposedly evenly bake the bread.  It produced a delicious cake, so moist and fluffy, and with only one egg! that I thought it a fine recipe for vegan tweaking.

This bread is so good - it makes two loaves, one for now, one for later, and fills the house with the yummiest scent of cardamom and vanilla baking.

Vegan Cardamom Pear Loaf

Makes 2 loaves

Takes 1 hour (plus freezing time)

1 cup honey

1/2 cup dark brown sugar, packed

3/4 cup + 3 tablespoons canola oil

2 inches of the black innards of a vanilla pod (or 2 teaspoons of pure vanilla extract)

1/2 tsp ground cardamom (5-6 pods)

2 cups flour

1 cup semolina*

2 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp salt

3 pears sliced up into little bits

1/2 cup pistachios, toasted and coarsely chopped

1.5 cups boiling water

Toast the pistachios in a toaster oven or the big oven on 250 for 8–10 minutes.  Careful they don't burn!  When they've cooled, coarsely chop them.  If baking bread right away, preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.

Grease and flour 2 loaf pans.

In a large bowl, dissolve the sugar in the honey (you may want to melt the honey in the microwave or on the stove).  When dissolved, add oil, vanilla and cardamom, and stir vigorously until it's well-combined.  Add the flour, semolina, baking soda and salt, and stir until the dough resembles course, sandy meal.  Mix in the pears and crushed pistachios.

Add the boiling water and stir, the dough will be runny like pancake batter.

At this point you have two options, to freeze the dough or to not the freeze the dough.  I find that there is no difference between freezing and not freezing the dough in the finished bread.

The loaf on the left was baked yesterday with immediately mixed batter, and the loaf on the right was baked today, from batter that was frozen overnight.  It has a slightly larger crumb, but other than the differences from my pouring a bit more batter into the pan, tastes the same and has (basically) the same texture.

Oh well.  Since this recipe makes enough for 2 loaves, you get a later loaf for when you've eaten all of the first one!

Bake at 350 for 40-50 minutes (a bit more if you have a frozen loaf) until a fork comes out cleanly.  Let cool in the pan, and then turn out and enjoy!

*Semolina is also known as rava or cream of wheat.  It gives the bread an extra little crunch.  If you don't want to use it, you can use another 1.5 cups of flour (3.5 cups flour total).